It's More Than Enough
by pretty in green
Summary: It'll have to do for now," she thought. "But it's more than enough." What will Toph do in Aang's time of need? No longer a one-shot. Taang, with mild Zutara.
1. Prologue

**EDIT: Hey, everyone! So I promised I'd continue one of my one-shots and I'd figure why not start with my first one? So to clear a few things up, I decided to make the original one-shot a sort of prologue to the rest of the story. But I guess you could also consider it the first chapter if you want. So hopefully you'll all like what I decided to do with this. And as always, I like complete honesty. Just don't be rude! **

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own Avatar or any of it's characters...but if I did, that would be so cool!**

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**Hey, so I'm kind of new to this and this is my first fanfiction. So please go easy on me. But tell me if you like my writing style or if you have any suggestions. Much appreciated. Thanks and enjoy!**

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**It's More Than Enough**

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_**Prologue**_

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Toph Bei Fong sat across the dinner table from the air bending monk who seemed to have been in another world by the way he was acting. He stared at the balcony that was to the left of the large dining table and she realized that he was staring at the stars that dotted the skies. His lips were also moving very slightly and she figured that he was counting them.

Toph knew Aang extremely well by now. After about three years, she realized the little things that Aang did when he tried to distract himself during formal events like this one. He always put his elbow on the table and leaned his chin into his hand. Occasionally some important diplomat that Toph could never remember tapped Aang on the shoulder and asked about his opinions about current economical issues and things like that. He would simply sigh deeply and would say he would surely discuss the matter later. He also found something to distract him like following the cracks in walls or counting the stars.

Toph wasn't surprised at his current mood. She remembered the day in her head clearly. She was walking out of Iroh's tea shop three years ago right after the war. She happened to overhear the conversation between the water bender and her student on the balcony.

"I'm sorry, Aang," she said in an apologetic voice. "This isn't going to work."

Toph imagined the utter shock in Aang's face. "What do you mean?"

She felt Katara turn away from the sunset. Toph backed out of the doorway slightly, but stayed close enough so that she could hear what was happening.

"I mean there's nothing happening between the two of us. When I kiss you, when I'm near you, there's nothing there. I feel like I'm forcing myself to love you." The last sentence came out choked due to the tears that seemed to be streaming down her face.

"I'm so sorry."

Aang wasn't moving. His heartbeat was dangerously slow. He didn't say anything for a while and the two of them just stood there for a long while. Toph didn't know how many minutes had passed but she felt the tenseness of the situation and frankly it made her the slightest bit uncomfortable.

Thankfully, Katara decided to end it early and walked toward the doorway back into the shop. Toph quickly ran to one of the tables where Sokka and Zuko were sitting pretending she was listening to their conversation. She felt Katara walk by swiftly hiding her face. Aang hadn't moved a muscle, still stunned by the confession his first true love had given him.

Looking at Aang now, she couldn't exactly blame him for feeling so low. Having to show up to Zuko and Katara's wedding in the Fire Palace had to be heart breaking for him. But she couldn't say that she didn't know how it felt either. Aang had always been her symbol of freedom and her chance to show the world exactly who she was. He broke her out of her prison and became her first and ever friend. She remembered how she would always look forward to anything that had to do with Aang, let it be training with him or simply sitting next to him. Her heart would flutter every time he came near, but thankfully no one else could tell.

She often cursed herself for acting so girly. She shouldn't be feeling this way towards anyone. She had more important things to worry about and one of them was definitely not drooling over a boy. But he fascinated her in ways she couldn't imagine, in ways she couldn't explain. He practically completed her and made her want to get up every morning.

She knew jealousy and it hurt all too much. Whenever his heart sped up when Katara walked near, she felt like screaming at him and earth bending him into the ground. But she had better composure than that. She simply turned away and pretended that it didn't bother her. But she remembered when the two of them kissed at the invasion, their bodies extremely close, and their hearts going at a mile a minute. Her chest hurt and she felt like she couldn't breathe. She went below deck and she felt herself starting to cry. No one seemed to notice due to the fact that she was sea sick the entire way to the fire nation. But she knew that her heart had been broken and at the time, she didn't think it would mend.

So here she was feeling the same painful feeling that Aang had been feeling for the past three years and even more so now. By this time, all of the people who were sitting at the tables had gotten up to dance. Katara and Zuko were in the middle dancing with each other and laughing the whole time. Everyone else surrounded them in the midst of a thousand other conversations.

Aang got up from his chair and walked over to the balcony and stood outside. Toph knew that he had to be in the worst pain of all. She didn't think anyone else would feel the way she did and she truly felt sorry that the fun loving monk had to endure it. She stood up and decided to follow him. She pushed through the thick crowd of people and tried her hardest to concentrate on Aang's light footsteps.

She walked outside and immediately felt the cool breeze brush across her face. She slowly walked over to the edge of the balcony and leaned on the edge looking into nothing. She noticed that he was doing the same thing.

"Aang, are you okay?"

She obviously knew the answer, but she just needed to hear a human response from him.

"I'm fine," he choked out. He could not have told a bigger lie.

Toph turned herself to face Aang and brought herself back onto her feet. "No, you aren't."

It must've taken Aang by surprise because he immediately looked up and stared straight into her sightless eyes. Neither of them moved. She wondered if Aang saw the same hurt in her eyes that she knew he had. Then, Toph felt his arms wrap around her waist and his face hid in her shoulder. She heard him crying, truly crying out all of his pain. The great avatar cried like a child in front of the young earth bender. Toph wrapped her arms around him as well and rested her chin on his shoulder.

The closeness between them was comforting for both of them. Toph realized at that point that all Aang needed was someone to understand him and what better person than his best friend. Toph patted his back very lightly.

"It's okay. It's going to be alright," she whispered.

She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of his sobs. She hoped that someday, maybe not now, he will love her with the unconditional love that she had for him. Secretly, she had hoped for more romantic and loving moments to erupt from the two of them, moments that she would treasure forever. But she realized that comforting her best friend in his time of need wasn't at all disappointing. _It'll have to do for now_, she thought. _But it's more than enough._

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**So, yeah. A kind of sad yet fluffy Taang one-shot (well not anymore actually). Tell me what you think. REVIEW!!!!**


	2. Chapter 1

**It's More Than Enough**

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**_Chapter 1_**

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The one thing that people would always say about the Fire Nation was that it had, without a doubt, the most spectacular sunrises and sunsets out of all the other nations. It made sense after all. In a place where Fire Benders' passion burned brightly every day, it would be logical that the sun would match the passion in their hearts. Even though the sun wasn't brilliantly shining at the top of the sky, it could still be an amazing sight as it showed only small remnants of its rays. As Toph sat on the balcony of the large Fire Nation palace and felt the warmth of the sun slowly diminish, she remembered what her mother had told her of the sunrises and sunsets in the Fire Nation when Toph was a girl. She had told her that every nation had a natural beauty. The night sky in the Water Tribes was truly a sight to behold. The valleys and mountainsides at the Earth Kingdom were things that could simply not be found anywhere else. And the breezes that flowed through the Air Temples would make any person feel as if they were simply floating on air.

But her mother seemed extremely passionate about what the Fire Nation had to offer in particular. Toph's mother had said that the sunrises and sunsets at the Fire Nation were like a woman's heart. Even if a woman's heart wasn't showing itself completely to the people around them, it could still emit brilliant emotions. It could feel and love just as fiercely.

Toph often thought that her heart was like that more often than not. She could never recall a time in her life where she spilled out every single thing that she held in her heart. She had never displayed herself like that to anyone. She definitely never did that with her parents. She never even did it with Katara despite all that she had laid in front of her in the past and despite the fact that she truly was one of the earth bender's best friends. If you compare all that she had ever told anyone to what she still held inside of her, it would be just like a sunset. Only small remnants of her heart could be seen by others. But that didn't mean she couldn't feel. And she felt stronger than anyone would ever know. And she liked it that way. It was how it had always been because there was never a person she really wanted to spill her heart to.

Of course, there was one exception.

"Are you alright, Toph?" a soft voice asked her.

Toph snapped out of her thoughts and turned her face away from the sunset, still trickling its last bits of warmth through the large window, and towards the voice that she recognized all too well. Toph gave a small smile and laughed lightly. "I'm fine, Sweetness. Just a little tired I guess," she answered.

Katara laughed as she sat cross-legged across from Toph at the elegant looking tea table set up in the balcony connected to the Fire Lord and Fire Lady's private suite. Katara started to pour two cups of jasmine tea for her and her best friend. She smiled inwardly at the fact that jasmine tea was both their favorite kind of tea. "The wedding was a whole day ago. Don't tell me you're still wiped out from staying out that night," she said jokingly.

Toph snorted lightly. "Please. If anything I could probably out-party the entire Fire Nation. The wedding isn't my problem," she admitted.

Katara placed a cup of tea in front of the earth bender as she sipped her own. Toph quickly thanked her and slowly picked up the cup and placed it to her lips, letting the warm liquid soothe the troubling thoughts running through her mind. "Well, then what _is_ the problem?" she heard Katara ask her.

Toph rolled her eyes. "Nothing's my problem. I'm just thinking a lot, that's all," she answered back. She carelessly traced her finger along the edges of her tea cup as Katara narrowed her eyes at her.

"Come on Toph," Katara said seriously. "You've been like this all day." She poured Toph another cup of tea who eagerly placed it to her mouth to avoid the upcoming conversation. Of course that wasn't going to stop Katara. Things like this rarely did. She would try to console a tree if she knew it would listen. It was just the type of person she was. Of course Toph rarely minded this when she _wanted_ to talk about what was up with her. The things going on in her mind were going to stay there if she could help it.

"I mean you've been staring off into space like something is really bothering you," she continued. "You can tell me. That's part of the reason I wanted to talk to you. I just want to know what's bugging you."

Toph sighed. "Look," she started. "If something serious was wrong with me—which I'm not saying that there is—I would tell you about it. Without hesitation. But it really is nothing you need to worry about," she assured as she sipped more of her tea.

She wasn't lying. It really was nothing Katara needed to kill herself over. It was just Toph day dreaming again. _I really need to stop doing that_, she thought. Thinking about the wedding was starting to mess with her. A certain air bender started plaguing her thoughts more than she would've liked. She kept remembering what it felt like to hold Aang so close to her. To be able to comfort him. She had been thinking about that a lot lately. The fact that he was just as broken as she was. She had never really noticed it until last night. He seemed to have been hiding it extremely well, just like she had been. Until last night that is.

"Toph?"

Toph shook her head and noticed that she was doing it again. She was thinking way too much. She picked up her cup and swirled the remnants of what little tea was still left inside. She suddenly wasn't in the mood for tea anymore.

Toph put on her trademark smirk and tried to turn the awkward conversation around by changing the subject. "Well, you really haven't told me much about what it's like to be married. You went from 'me' to 'we' all of a sudden. How did _that _happen?" she said with a little bit of humor in her voice.

Katara placed a pout on her face. "Well don't make it sound like it was some freak thing," she said in a hurt tone that still held some humor in it. She had learned to get used to the girl's sarcasm a long time ago. It was fairly easy to tell when she was kidding.

Toph laughed. "So?" she pressed.

Katara shrugged. "Well, if I have to be honest, it's kind freaking me out. I mean, this is a whole new chapter in my life now. And like you said. It's not just me anymore. Now there are two of us. I'm not independent. I can't just do things on my own anymore. It's a joint thing between the two of us. I'm not saying I'm not thrilled with the idea that we're married. It's…just a little strange to get used to, you know?"

Toph nodded while she looked past Katara's shoulder. Her eyes held understanding and showed that she was absorbing everything Katara was saying. So the water bender continued on.

"And let's not even start with the Fire Sages. That was a whole ordeal on its own. You wouldn't believe the fight Zuko got into with them when they found out I wasn't nobility. And even worse, when they found out I wasn't even Fire Nation. They kept telling him that he was going to bring the Fire Nation down another path of misfortune if he did this. That it would bring bad luck to the nation after the war was finally over or something like that. You wouldn't believe how heated it got. I just feel like this whole thing with us getting married was a bigger deal than I initially thought it was going to be."

Katara sighed and poured herself another cup of tea. She asked if the earth bender wanted anymore but the young girl declined. The water bender shrugged and started on her second cup of tea. Toph heard the expensive Fire Nation jewelry the Fire Lady must've been wearing jingle as she lifted her arms to take a sip of tea. When she finally put the cup down, Toph spoke up.

"He must _really_ love you then," she told her.

Katara raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Well, he must have known for ages that it was ideal to have a noble Fire Nation woman as Fire Lady. He could've picked a lot of people for the job. I mean I heard Mai was very close to being a candidate. I mean she fits the ideal description. But no. He picked you. A water tribe girl. If he didn't really love you and didn't think that you were strong enough and capable enough to be the Fire Lady alongside of him, he would've never married you. And the way he stood up for you like you just said is solid proof he's head over heels for you." Toph smirked and was finally distracted enough to take another sip from her cup.

Katara smiled brightly. "I guess you're right. I mean he really is amazing Toph. I remember when I thought that I couldn't stand him. I hated him for what he did to us. Never would I have ever imagined he'd be the one to help me through so much. I mean he was there when he helped me find the person who killed my mother, he helped me every time I was confused and didn't know what to do." Katara sighed a sigh full of admiration. "He even took a bolt of lightning to the stomach to protect me." Katara smiled again as she continued on.

"I can tell he really cares about me and will do anything to make me trust him whole heartedly. I guess that's what I love most about him if I really think about it," she said thoughtfully.

Toph smiled. "Well, you deserve someone who loves you that much, Sugar Queen."

Katara blushed at her friend's comment. "Well," said setting down her cup. "Enough about me. I haven't really asked much about what you and Aang have been doing lately."

It was no secret that Toph and Aang were the only two people left in the Gaang that were still traveling together. Sokka and Suki obviously chose to stay together and went back to the South Pole after much begging and pleading on Sokka's part. Toph wasn't the only Earth Kingdom girl who absolutely tried to stay away from the cold whenever she could. But apparently staying in the South Pole for three years makes you get used to the cold. Toph had no intention of testing out that theory anytime soon however. Katara and Zuko were obviously busy leading an entire nation and had their marriage to deal with. That pretty much left Aang and Toph with nowhere to go.

Well, technically that was a lie. Toph did have a place she could go. But that was entire issue on its own that she didn't like discussing either. Of course everyone knew this and didn't push the fact that perhaps she could try going back to her parent's house. Toph often got annoyed when the topic came up and immediately dismissed it. So with nowhere for Aang to go and with nowhere Toph _wanted_ to go, they managed to stick together this entire time.

"It's not so bad actually," Toph shrugged. "I mean, the fire nation rebels running around trying to get their revenge on us is beyond annoying, but other than that life's pretty good," she smirked.

"Oh yeah I heard Zuko talking about that," Katara said, concern lining her voice. "They've been causing trouble around here in the capital too. They keep ransacking buildings and messing with the civilians. They've been getting violent lately. There was a huge commotion here about a month ago. Twenty or so people were injured because of it. You guys haven't been getting hurt have you?" she asked. Katara's motherly complex didn't seem to have diminished in the past few years. Toph noticed silently that she could always count on Katara to worry about things she really shouldn't have been worrying about. _Same ol' Sugar Queen_, Toph mentally chuckled.

"Relax," she replied off-handedly. "They're not that bad to take care of. I mean come on. They've got to deal with the Avatar and the World's Greatest Earth Bender." She smiled with pride as she recited her impressive self-proclaimed title. Although no one had a doubt that she was accurate in her title. "They all went down in a matter of seconds. It's nothing we can't handle so don't kill yourself over it."

Katara smiled at her friend's self confidence as Toph continued on. "Anyway, we actually started work on the Southern Air Temple. All of the collapsed ceilings and walls in the Eastern part of the temple are officially in mint-condition. The Western part actually needs to be totally restructured. I mean I walked in there and the rooms felt like they were being held up by a twig. We were about to knock a bunch of rooms down and see if we could start over. But then we got you're invitation and made our way over here."

"So how long do you think it'll take to finish everything?" Katara asked, leaning forward a little bit.

Toph shrugged as she took another sip of tea and swirled the contents around again. "Well, he insists that we not touch any of the shrines in the temple. Aang's sort of bothered by that so the fact that we have to work around a lot of statues and buildings is kind of making things take a little longer. But we're actually half way finished. You won't believe how gigantic that place is," she explained.

Katara nodded. "Yeah, I was there once when the place was practically covered in a foot of snow," she remembered. "The rooms were just amazing. The high ceilings and the pillars that were everywhere were just breathtaking. I mean, it was really beautiful. You have to keep that beautiful architecture intact so I have no doubt it's taking a while to finish. But I know Aang; he doesn't give up that easily.

"How is he anyway? I haven't seen much of him since he got here."

Toph clenched her fists underneath the table turning her knuckles white.

"_How is he anyway?" _Toph wanted to scream at her for asking such a ridiculous question so casually.

"I mean I haven't seen him in three years. I wonder how he's doing," Katara smiled.

Toph tried to not bang her fists on the table in frustration. How is he doing? Was she serious? She obviously wasn't aware of the state she left the boy in when she turned him down at the tea shop. Toph remembered his heart beat, dangerously slow, almost nonexistent. Toph knew a broken heart when she felt one. And she certainly felt Aang's that day. He truly thought that she had returned his feelings and that he wasn't just wasting his time. Who was Katara to lead him on like that and then not show an interest? She had no idea the turmoil she caused him this entire time. Had she forgotten that day completely? Or was she just that oblivious to not notice what she did to him?

Aang was so carefree and spirited. He was probably the happiest boy she had even seen. Always optimistic and never letting anything get him down. To see him cry like that…it was so foreign to her. She didn't know if she would ever see it again. She recalled him crying when Appa was taken away. She hated him when he was like that. So empty and uncaring. It was so unlike him. To know that he was like that because of Katara was what made Toph angry most of all. She started clenching her teeth. She wanted to scream at her. She wanted to yell at her and tell her what happened at the wedding while she was dancing and enjoying herself. She wanted to tell her that she broke someone's heart and didn't seem like she remembered it at all. She wanted to tell her it was all her fault he was avoiding the water bender.

Toph sighed. "He's doing fine, Katara. I mean it's Aang we're talking about. He's just as happy as ever. He's probably just busy with something," she lied with a troubled look on her face that Katara seemed not to notice.

"Well that's so good to hear. Not that I expected any different. There's almost nothing that could get him in a bad mood," she laughed.

_If only you knew_, she thought darkly.

Katara looked to her left outside the window, noticing that the sky was getting dark. Katara stood up and brushed f her expensive Fire Nation robes. "Gosh, look how dark it's getting already," she said, fixing her long brown locks of hair.

Toph followed the water bender's actions and brushed off the green pants she was wearing as she stood up. "You have to be somewhere?" she questioned.

"Actually yes. Zuko said that the Fire Sages were requesting an audience with the two of us after sunset." Katara rolled her eyes. "Time to face the music I guess."

Toph waved her hand. "Oh, calm down. If I know Sparky, he's not going to let those old jerks push you two around," she said smirking.

Katara laughed. "Yeah, I guess."

She looked up to see Toph facing the window again with a thoughtful look in her eye. The young earth bender had her head tilted to the side as she stared at the last, thin trickle of light that she couldn't see. A worried expression crossed over Katara's face. She gently placed a hand on Toph's shoulder. Toph suddenly looked up and happened to meet Katara's eyes exactly. Katara could've sworn that she saw a bit of sadness lining her eyes. Toph sighed and pushed away from Katara. Katara dropped her arm and couldn't help but feel worried for her.

"Toph, are you sure that you're okay?"

Toph turned and looked at Katara with a confused face. "Of course I'm okay," she laughed. "I just hope the Fire Sages are going to be okay. When Sparky gets mad, there's no stopping him."

Katara smiled, though still a little unconvinced as to whether Toph was really okay. But there was no way of telling. Toph was really good at hiding things like that. If Toph wanted to talk about something, she would be here waiting for her, Fire Lady or not. All she had to do was be patient. "So what are you going to go do now?" she questioned.

Toph stretched her arms in the air. "I think I'm gonna go look for Twinkle Toes. I haven't seen him lately myself." Toph turned around to walk away before Katara caught her shoulder and turned her around. Toph looked up at the water bender and raised an eyebrow.

"What is it?" she asked, confused.

Katara sighed. "I just wanted to say…if you need to talk about something…I'm here. You know that right?"

Toph smiled weakly. "I know. But I told you. I'm fine."

Katara looked down for a moment before smiling back. The two friends bid each other goodbye before parting ways. Katara went off to the Throne Room while Toph went to go look for her earth bending student.

Toph fiddled with her headband as she exited Katara's room. She honestly wasn't so sure of the conversation Katara wanted to have when she led Toph into her room. She had asked the earth bender if she would like to have tea with her. She said it was just to catch up a little bit and to just spend time with her. She also kept saying that she had to sit in the throne room all day and be presented to all of the Fire Nation nobles and she was rather tired. Toph expected as much. Being in a room with a bunch of important, boring people all day long probably had to mind numbing. Toph knew it would have been like that for her had she been there.

"_I just want to talk to one of my friends for a while. I'm kind of sick of all the sudden formalities and I need a break. What do you say?"_

It would've been really rude to say no. I mean it sounded like Katara was annoyed by everyone around her and just needed the comfort of a friend's company. Toph understood that. So she came. It started off well. They started talking about what Katara was doing before she came to the Fire Nation. She said that they had started extending the Southern Water Tribe. They added buildings, ship ports, and even a central meeting hall. She said it was starting to look rather impressive and that she's excited about how well it was turning out. Then Zuko invited her to the Fire Nation and they hit it off right away. They started spending time together all of the time and then in a matter of three years, they wound up married. The conversation was not that bad. Toph was actually starting to enjoy herself. Then they started talking about Aang and it all went downhill from there. It was frustrating to say the least.

The moon had already started rising as the earth bender made her way through the halls of the Fire Nation palace. The pale, sliver light started leaking through the windows and illuminating the halls even though the night was still very young. The light reflected off of her dark hair as she walked along. A few guards offered her brief hello's and goodbye's but other than that it was pretty quiet. There was no need to go ask anyone for directions as to where the monk was. She already knew where he would be. The fact that no one had seen him all day, it was because he needed to be alone. And there was only one place he would go if he really wanted to be alone.

Toph passed the guards posted at the front door of the Royal Palace and stepped outside. The wind started to blow past her and blew her bangs out of her face. She walked down the stairs that led to the door and made her way across the large courtyard. Her feet shifted against the floor slightly as she felt around for Aang. In the corner of the courtyard, she was able to find a large building which she automatically figured must have been the stables. She ran across the courtyard to the large wooden doors that led inside the stables. She pushed the door open and was met with the smell of various animals and dried grass. Each pen was holding a Komodo Rhino that she remembered all too well seeing as how Fire Nation soldiers used to ride the things every time they were chased as kids.

As she passed the animals and heard the dried grass crunching underneath her feet, she found what she was looking for. Out of nowhere, a flying lemur came and nestled himself atop of Toph's shoulder. She reached and scratched his head as she approached the large sky bison in the very back of the stables who was snoring as loudly as ever. She went over and patted the furry giant on the head receiving a tired grunt in response. She rounded to the other side of Appa and leaning against his best animal friend was the air bender in question.

He was sitting on the ground leaning against Appa staring out of the large window that was at the back wall of the stables. He must've realized that Toph was there because he turned his head to meet her eyes. Neither of them moved nor spoke for what seemed like hours. Toph just stood there staring at Aang and Aang was sitting staring back at her. Then Aang moved over a little bit and lightly patted the ground next to him. Toph took the gesture and sat down next to him. She brought her knees up to her chin and sighed. Aang mimicked her and leaned his chin on top of his knees as well. The two stood in a comfortable silence, enjoying the sounds of the night, letting the moonlight hit their faces, and just enjoying the other's presence. Toph broke the silence first.

"Everyone's been wondering where you were," she said softly, not turning her head away from the window. "Were you here the entire time?"

Aang did nothing but nod. Toph expected as much. Things were going to be a little awkward between them. After all they hadn't talked much since the night of the wedding. Actually, after she met him on the balcony they hadn't spoken at all. All Aang did after they broke the hug was run off into the crowd and disappear. She hadn't seen him for the rest of that night or all of today. He had been here the entire time.

They stood silent for another few minutes before it was Aang's turn to speak. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, just loud enough for Toph to hear. "You, know for last night. I guess I was just upset. I just…" he trailed off.

Toph turned to face him. "You don't have to apologize. It wasn't a big deal. Besides, it looked like you needed some company and I gave it to you. That's not something you need to feel sorry for," she assured him. Aang just stood quiet.

Toph started to drum her fingers against her elbows as she propped her arms on top of her knees. She started to hear the crickets come out and sing a sweet little song that both benders found extremely comforting. Toph bit her lip and tried to talk to him again.

"Do you know how long you're planning to stay here?"

Aang shrugged. "Zuko said that he would like it if we could stick around for a few days. He said that since he hasn't seen us in a really long time, it would be nice to stay on an extended visit." Aang sighed. "I guess I don't mind. After all, he is our friend."

Toph looked down at the ground next to her. _He's still really upset_, she figured. The usually chatty air bender was clearly trying to avoid a conversation. Maybe he was still trying to sort out his thoughts and his feelings, similar to what Toph had been doing all day as well. He seemed to be perfectly fine before they got here. Rebuilding the temple with him had been quite a riot. He would always make jokes here and there that started the most peculiar conversations. She would catch him off guard with a random rock to the back of his head which often led to a good sparring session which the two never seemed to get enough out of. They would even have races through the entire temple when they were bored of putting up walls and ceilings. It was fun to have Aang around. He was like a breath of fresh air on a really crummy day. Now he was just…sitting there. Not even attempting to try to lighten up the depressing mood that seemed to have fallen on him. It was uncomfortable to be around him now. And that almost never happened.

She had to figure out a way to fix it.

"I know you're upset," she told him. Aang didn't move. Instead he shifted uncomfortably in his seat as he realized where she was going with this.

"I mean I know it must be really hard for you to be here right now. And it must be hard to go and just have fun. But sulking isn't going to solve anything, Twinkle Toes. If anything, it's just going to make things worse for you."

Aang turned his face to Toph and saw her still facing the window with her sightless eyes. Toph felt is eyes boring into her and knew that she had really gotten him listening. "You haven't been yourself. I mean you're moping around the place like a complete zombie. You're not talking to anyone, you're avoiding everyone, and…you're just not you," she told him.

"I mean what happened to you? I'm starting to really miss you're bad jokes, you know. And that's saying something," she added with a light laugh. She had earned a small laugh from him as well.

Aang scratched his head. "I know. Like you said, it's just a little weird being here. I know it happened a long time ago but…I can't help but feel a little strange about it." He knew he didn't need to tell Toph what 'it' was. It was painfully obvious what he was talking about.

Toph turned her whole body towards him. "So you're just going to avoid her for the rest of your life?" Toph hung her head. "You can't do that. Has nothing I've taught you sunk into that brain of yours? You can't just deviate situations like this. This is one of those things that you have to face head on," she explained to him.

Aang turned himself towards her as well. "How do you suppose I do that? Am I just supposed to pretend that nothing ever happened? That's easier said than done. I mean, it's like every time I look at her, I keep thinking about what she said to me that day. I thought…" he trailed off. He sighed. "I thought she liked me back. But I was wrong. And now I just feel like a complete idiot."

Aang let his hands run over his face as he tried to calm himself down a little bit. "I don't want to keep feeling like I'm being ripped to shreds," he whispered.

Toph frowned and placed a shoulder on Aang's shoulder. He looked up at her and saw her sightless eyes filled with…understanding. Almost as if she knew exactly what he was going through. She took a deep breath and calmly spoke to him. "You don't have to forget what happened. Actually, I don't think you should. But if you want to find peace of mind, you have to move on," she told him while he kept his eyes locked on hers. "You can't keep dwelling on this. It'll rip you apart even more until there's nothing left. And I don't think anyone wants that." Toph wanted to say that _she_ didn't want that, but she didn't want to open that book just yet.

Aang looked out the window and saw that the sky had gotten very dark, despite the moon shining brightly down upon them. The two didn't say anything again for a long time. They were both quite used to the silence that seemed to remain between them. It was comforting, like they were absorbing what the other said and just basking in the other's presence. And neither of them minded it.

Aang stood up. "It's getting really late. You should probably get back," he said, is voice sounding very loud in the surrounding silence.

Toph scrunched her eyebrows. "You're not coming?"

Aang shook his head. "I thought I'd stay here for a little while longer. It's a nice place to think," he smiled slightly.

Toph got up on her feet and started to head for the door. She asked if he was sure that he didn't want to come back to the palace with her. But he kept saying that he wanted to have a little more time to himself. Toph didn't want to argue about with him so she left him alone. She started to make her way to the door. She had her hands on the large doors, but turned around and looked back to the back of the stables. She faced Aang who was still watching her leave before he settled himself back into is comfortable spot next to Appa.

"Just remember what I said, alright?" she told him. "Life has to go on. Otherwise you'll be wallowing in the past forever. And I don't think anyone would like that for themselves."

With that, Toph pushed the doors open and left Aang alone in the stables as he deeply contemplated everything he had told her. Without another sound, Toph made her way back across the courtyard and back towards the palace. As she made her way through the halls of the palace to her room, she realized something for the first time. As she heard Aang talking about how much he was still bothered by Katara's rejection those years ago, she strangely didn't feel jealous. It wasn't killing her to listen him vent about what he was feeling. It was then as she walked through the dark hallways of the palace that she realized that she didn't feel jealous that she didn't have his heart.

All she wanted was to make sure that he was happy. And nothing else seemed to matter.

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**A/N: So I finally got the nerve (and the time) to type this up. Sorry for the overly angsty feel to this first chapter. It won't stay like this, don't worry. Review and tell me what you think of it so far. Love it? Hate it? Want to make a suggestion? Just press the beautiful green review button! Thank you. **


	3. Chapter 2

**A/N: I'm sorry that I've been MIA for a while. But summer is ending and it's time for me to dust off the summer homework. Plus I've just really been going through a lot of personal stuff lately and I really lost all motivation to write anything. But I can't leave my stories unfinished. That wouldn't be fair to you all. **

**I also just want to say that I beta my own work. So forgive me if there are any mistakes. It's not that I'm lazy or anything it's just that I never catch all of my mistakes (but strangely I can catch other people's mistakes). If there is a Beta out there who is interested in being a beta for this, PM me because that would just be amazing. I'll thank you a thousand times over. **

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**It's More Than Enough**

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_**Chapter 2**_

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If there was one thing that Toph could say without a wavering thought and without hesitation it was that bending really did release a lot of pent up feelings. May it be frustration or melancholy, whatever Toph felt seemed to always disappear when she practiced. It was something that she never quite understood. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that being one with her element in the form of a martial art kept her mind at peace and helped her forget things that just weren't important. She wasn't entirely sure. But forgetting her problems was something that she looked forward to in times like these, so she eagerly let her body flow through the rough stances and powerful blows that came with earth bending. She wanted to relax, if only for a while.

When she woke up that morning, Aang's defeated voice kept crossing her mind, no matter how much she really didn't want to hear it. She had meant what she thought the night before. She strangely wasn't too jealous that Katara was still in Aang's heart. It didn't make any sense but it didn't bother her as much as it should've. What she really wanted to do was to erase that terribly depressed version of her best friend out of her mind and replace it with the best friend that she knew. The one that had saved her. The one that she had taught. The one that she was falling in love with. She wanted Aang back. Even though it might mean that they may stay only friends, she was willing to sacrifice that. He was that important to her. And even though she would never voice that to anyone, no matter how much she wanted to tell _him_, every part of it was true.

Aang was important to her.

Today was one of those days where she really didn't feel like dwelling on any of that. She didn't want to think about her conversation with Katara and how angry she got, or her conversation with Aang and how sorry she felt. She just wanted to escape the confusing ramblings of her mind for just a bit and maybe get in a good exercise as well. And that's why she was in the rock garden in the Fire Nation Palace. She smiled to herself when she remembered the uproar she brought about when she pointed out there were no training grounds anywhere in the Fire Nation Palace for Earth Benders. People like Aang could probably air bend in the same place where all of the Fire Benders trained. Of course, Zuko took it upon himself to create a beautiful Koi pond with a lush green garden to match so his lovely wife could practice water bending. That left nowhere for Toph to go and practice. Of course she decided to make it a bigger deal than it actually was just to see Zuko squirm around for a bit. And so, this rock garden was immediately built per the World's Greatest Earth Bender's request before her arrival. It was nice to have things her way once in a while.

Toph quickly began kicking multiple rocks in succession towards the back wall of the place made especially for occasions like this. She couldn't really complain. It was a rather large courtyard with stone walls surrounding it with a large expanse of rock to complete. No grass or flowers were needed. It would be a waste to have it since the place was always demolished at the end of the day. It was simple, but Toph loved it. She smirked as she felt the rocks destroy the make-shift targets she placed at the edge of the wall. Nothing like some target practice before she got serious. She bent five more boulders up from the ground and made them twice as large this time. She stepped back towards the wall all the way on the other side of the courtyard. She slid her foot to the side slightly so she could get a proper "view" of her new targets. She breathed in slowly and got into her stance. She kicked the ground and brought up two average sized rocks perfect for projectiles. She punched her fists forward in front of her and had the rocks collide with the boulders on the other side of the courtyard. They each hit two of the larger boulders straight in the center, causing them to break with only one hit. Toph smirked at her slight victory. It was always best to get the enemy down in one shot, she always told herself. It was just a matter of hitting the right spots.

Before she was able to break the three other boulders she had set up, she felt someone walking up behind her where the doors to the courtyard was. The footsteps were easily recognizable. They were almost non-existent. Just a light caress compared to the booming vibrations she was used to feeling. She stiffened up a bit when for she quickly realized who was coming. She tried to turn around, but was more nervous than anything else to even try to move. She had been trying to avoid this. It was why she was gone all morning. She was hoping that when people saw her actually get up early for the first time in a long time, they would get the hint and leave her be. But there was only one person who would ever overlook a detail like that in order to talk to a person. And it happened to be the same person she was trying to avoid. She never caught a break.

Toph slowly turned around to face whoever was there. She silently thanked the spirits that she was blind. It saved the two of them from the awkward stares they would've been giving each other. All she had to do was stand there and hold her breath until one of them got the nerve to say something…anything. It wasn't that she was afraid to talk to him. She was afraid of very few things and one of them was not talking to somebody. She was…reluctant? It was the best excuse she could come up with. She wasn't afraid to talk to him, she just wasn't sure that she wanted to. That was why she was here: to avoid the awkwardness that came from talking about relationships for just a small while. But apparently, she learned the hard way that it was an impossible feat.

She sighed inwardly. _No use in avoiding him anymore. He's an air bender. He's everywhere… _

…_it was a nice effort though._

"Hey," Aang spoke first. He didn't sound nearly as broken as he did last night. For that she was slightly relieved, but he wasn't using the chipper tone he usually did. It sounded more like his troubled, thinking tone. He often sounded like that when he was distracted and thinking. She should know. She's known him long enough to be able to pick him apart during anytime of the day.

"Hey," she responded back to him.

Aang walked closer as he looked around the courtyard, seeing the scattered rubble all over the place. "You've been training all morning?" he asked, looking at her with a suspicious glare. As usual, no one could deal with the fact that she got up early. Not that Toph expected any different. It _was_ an odd event if you really thought about it.

She shrugged as she turned back around and readied three projectile boulders on the ground in front of her. She punched her two arms forward and launched the right and left rock at the respective targets that were still left. Then she kicked her right foot towards the middle rock and let it fly towards the last target on the other side of the courtyard. As expected, they were all destroyed from just one single hit. She got up out of her stance and wiped off her brow with the back of her hand. She started stretching out her neck and rolling her shoulders back. She turned back to Aang, pushing her arms up above her head.

"I just thought I needed a little time to clear my head. Nothing like a good sweat to get your mind off things, right?" she added.

Aang nodded. "No, you're right. You just usually never even think about getting up at the crack of dawn like this," he told her.

Toph shrugged. She crossed her arms over her chest, but didn't say anything in return.

"What's going on with you?" he asked, concern lacing his voice.

Toph rolled her eyes and turned around. She definitely didn't want to have this conversation. It was bad enough that Aang had actually found her, but now he was trying to find out if she was okay. In order to do that, she would have to tell him what she was thinking, which in turn would lead to how she felt about him, which would also lead to the big confession she swore on her life she would avoid. It was at times like these where she wished Aang was as clueless as he seemed instead of the annoyingly perceptive person he actually was. "I'm fine," she said finally.

The sun's rays started to come down upon Toph's back a lot harder than before and she started to feel the heat get to her. She wiped the bangs that were plastered to her forehead away again as she walked to the left and situated herself against the courtyard wall on the ground in the little bit of shade it had provided. She shifted a little since she was positive that Aang was staring at her. When no words were exchanged between them, they would just stare at each other (well, Aang would stare while Toph would just listen to his rhythmic heartbeat and focus on the shape of him through the ground).

"Why are you here?" Toph asked suddenly, removing the tunic she had on and staying in a light, sleeveless shirt that she kept on underneath. The summer weather was really starting to take its toll and it felt like Toph was going to burn up.

Aang walked next to where Toph was sitting and took off the light tunic he was wearing as well. He tossed it off to the side of the courtyard while he started stretching his calves. "Call it a coincidence," he started, still stretching and pulling at his muscles, "but I kind of came here to clear my head, too. Mind if I join you?" he asked.

Toph snorted. "You can sit here if you want. I honestly don't care."

Aang shook his head. "No. I meant do you mind if I train with you a little bit."

Toph scrunched her eyebrows. He must have really been thinking like she was if he came here this early to train as well. But she wasn't really complaining. Practicing by yourself wasn't nearly as fun as sparring with someone. And she figured that as long as he was here and fully willing, she could get a decent fight out of him. Not to mention, the two of them could distract themselves just like they both originally intended. Toph smirked and walked over to the other end of the courtyard opposite of where Aang was standing. They both rolled up their pant legs up to their knees and got into their stances. Toph laughed and called over to Aang. "I hope you weren't expecting me to go easy on you just because you think there's something bothering me, right?"

Aang snorted. "Like I would ever underestimate you like that. You're not exactly one to go easy on _anybody_."

Toph shrugged with a smile. "You've got an excellent point there Twinkle Toes." She quickly cracked her knuckles and rolled her ankles and wrists.

"So," he called over to her again. "How are we going to do this?"

"No Avatar stuff. Just earth bending," she said without hesitation.

"I know that," he called back. "How do we know who wins?"

Toph tilted her head to the side and thought for a second. "How about we keep going until someone can't fight anymore?"

Aang shrugged. "Fine. But what do you mean by that?" Aang was smart. Toph liked loop holes and he knew that. Training under her for years had taught him to make sure that he understood all of the terms, conditions that came along with her "training."

Toph chuckled. "If you can't move, you can't fight. If you're not awake then you can't fight. And if you're injured and writhing in pain, then you still can't fight. Do you get where I'm going with this now?" she smirked.

Aang rolled his eyes with a smile. Toph had told him one time that the one thing she hated about Earth Rumble VI was that the minute you were knocked out of the ring, you lost the match, even though you could've been totally unharmed. She said it didn't leave any room for a challenge and left a little too much room for cheaters (coughaangcough) to get away with winning a match that they definitely didn't deserve. She said she much preferred to fight until you couldn't fight anymore, may it be because you're knocked out, injured, or subdued. Toph often reminded him that she would've beaten him to a pulp had he not "totally cheated like the brainless, air bending wimp that he was" and if the rules of Earth Rumble VI were just a little bit more flexible.

Aang smiled as he recalled that memory and shouted his approval of the plan. One thing that was constant between their spars was that they often didn't fight or make a move for a while. Toph never struck first because she preferred to wait for her opponent to make a move and she would then easily react accordingly. Aang was an air bender at heart so his fighting nature was usually defensive when he got right down to it. So they just stood there, solid as a rock, and stood concentrating. Aang's grey eyes looked deep into Toph's pale green was and he tried to look for any fault in her concentration. Toph kept her feet firmly planted to look for any faults in Aang's concentration as well.

Earth vs. Earth

The Seeing vs. The Sightless

Student vs. Teacher

The two of them loved every minute of it.

Toph had attacked first. She brought up a rock about twice her own size and punched forward in front of her. Aang saw the rock coming and held out both of his palms. He felt the rock collide with his hands as he slid back a few feet from the impact of the blow. However he came out unharmed and the rock was easily destroyed. Toph lifted her hands and brought two earth spikes from the ground and aimed them right at Aang. The thrust her fists forward and sent the spikes speeding straight towards him. Instead of trying to take his chances at destroying them, Aang simply rolled to the right to avoid the impending damage the spikes would've caused. Using Aang's slight imbalance from his sudden dodge to her advantage, Toph stomped her foot on the ground and brought up a large wall of earth right in front of her. She tilted her hands forward and the wall now jutted from the ground angled directly at the air bender. Toph brought her hands down in front of her and sent the large wall of earth at her opponent. Aang quickly looked up and saw the enormous projectile heading toward him. Seeing as his options were extremely limited, he quickly stood up and allowed himself to slip into the earth beneath him, completely avoiding the blow.

Toph smirked at Aang's impressive escape attempt as she focused on the vibrations around her to see where her student disappeared to. All too suddenly, Aang had appeared above ground right behind her. He lifted his arms and caused two pillars of earth to rise from the ground on either side of his Sifu. He sent them flying towards Toph in order to smash her in between the two. Toph smiled and used an earth pillar of her own to jump out of the way of Aang's attack. As Toph landed on the ground, her palms landed flat on the ground in front of her. A large crack started to run from her hands to make for a small earthquake. The crack quickly began to spread towards Aang. He would've easily fallen into the crack and have been swallowed by the large crevice had he not quickly jumped out of the way, remembering to use earth bending instead of air bending in order to jump high enough.

As soon as Aang landed, Toph began aiming an onslaught of attacks over at Aang. The projectiles seemed to have come from all directions which caused Aang to drop his offensive position and dodge all of the rocks that had suddenly come at him. The attacks had caused a large cloud of smoke around him making it impossible to see Toph. Aang smirked as he was still able to feel Toph's vibrations about four yards in front of him. He then counter attacked with a wave of attacks of his own, slightly catching Toph by surprise. She grabbed two of the boulders in her hands and flung them behind her as she expertly dodged through the countless number of other rocks that seemed to have started to come after her. The sounds of crumbling rocks, labored breath, and trickling sweat filled the courtyard as Toph continued dodging.

The dust that had been formed from the attacks had cleared and Aang was able to see Toph right in front of him again. She saw that Toph's headband had been lost in the fight somewhere and now her black, glossy hair cascaded down to her mid-back. Her bangs were plastered to her face due to the sweat but she didn't bother to wipe them out of the way. She kept her eyes focused as she tried to pick apart Aang's next move. The courtyard was demolished. Holes and pits dotted the arena where pieces of earth were previously used to aim back at an opponent. Some of the walls were cracked due to rocks colliding with them at an incredible force. Some were still stuck inside the walls.

Toph smiled as she made the first move again. She stomped her foot on the ground again and made a wide wall to form right in front of Aang. He looked up see Toph standing right on top of it. Using the height to her advantage, she began aiming large rocks at Aang from all different directions as she ran back and forth on her perch. Aang began kicking and punching the rocks, causing the rocks to break with a satisfying crumble of debris. Toph then started breaking chunks out of the wall and aimed it over at Aang. A few were extremely close to hitting Aang head on, but his air bending nature proved it hard for him to not be able dodge anything. Toph was able to cover a lot more ground with her attacks due to her being above him. He then stomped the ground and caused the ground underneath Toph's wall to shake. Feeling that her new perch was beginning to break, she jumped off right as the wall turned into a large pile of rock underneath her.

Toph skidded against the ground as she landed, bringing up another row or rocks in front of her. Aang also brought his arms across the ground in front of him, bringing up a row of rocks identical to Toph's as she landed. At the same time, they both made shots at each other, some rocks colliding with each other, some being expertly dodged, and some were easily destroyed by one of the earth benders in the middle of the chaos. The sounds of the rocks making contact with the ground and with each other were earsplitting. But the two benders kept at their barrage of attacks, aiming them expertly to come into contact with their opponent.

Sweat dripped off of both of their faces as Toph and Aang's supply of projectiles soon came to an end. With a quick burst of energy Toph jumped up and made her fists come in contact with the floor again. Slabs of earth came right towards Aang. In a panicked counter attack, he kicked one of his feet forward and caused a small wall of earth to make its way towards Toph as well. The adrenaline pumping through their veins made the attacks seem to go by at slow motion. At a final attempt to block the attacks, Toph brought up an earth wall in front of her to block the attack while Aang prepared to jump out of the way.

Both attacks finished with a large crash and another cloud of dust.

Each of their pants for breath and racing hearts could be detected by the other. As the dust cleared, Aang was able to see Toph in front of her. His attack had seemed to work. Incased in a large rock was Toph herself, seemingly struggling against the rock prison around every part of her body except her neck and head. Before Aang had celebrated his apparent victory, he tugged at his wrists and ankles to find it a useless attempt. He pulled harder and found that he couldn't move his wrists or his ankles. He looked down to see that the attack Toph had thrown at him had shackled his wrists and ankles to the ground, completely immobilizing him.

It was a draw.

Toph started laughing a few yards away from him. Her forehead was glistening with sweat as her body shook with laughter. "You're getting pretty good," she said finally. "I actually had to go all out this time. Not bad at all, Twinkles." She scrunched her eyebrows in concentration as she slowly punched her way out of her casing. She felt Aang also break out of her temporary shackles and heard the shackles crumble into dust. Toph walked over to Aang smiling, clearly in a good mood after their exercise.

"I think we should relax a little bit," Aang told her, still breathing heavily.

"Do you want to go somewhere else and cool off? I don't think this place is quite going to do it," Toph told him, taking into account the amount of damage that they caused in the courtyard.

Aang frowned at her. "Don't you think that we should clean this place up first?" Aang asked noticing the extent of the damage for the first time himself.

Toph waved a hand at him. "Nah, we'll do it later. I'm too tired. I kind of just want to lie back for a while," she answered just as tiredly.

Aang agreed and they made their way out of the demolition zone that used to be an earth bending arena. Right outside of the courtyard was the grounds that were in the back of the large Fire Nation palace. There were two very large hills that stretched out far into the horizon as well as a beautiful valley in between. The grass came up to the middle of their shins as the both of them trudged through the grass in the middle of the valley. The sun was shining down right above them now and the heat of the day was at its peak. Luckily, a breeze decided to accompany the weather and ruffled through both of their clothes. The sun hung brilliantly in the middle of the sky that was now a brilliant light blue. The clouds that stretched through the sky seemed to touch the horizon in the distance. Toph and Aang both lied down in the middle of the valley right in the middle of the grass. They both placed their hands behind their head and stared up at the sky. One was focusing at the clouds that were lazily drifting by while the other stared sightlessly at the sun, not even blinking at the intense light. Both friends found themselves relishing in the company of the other. The awkwardness of the previous night seemed to have completely faded away as they enjoyed the weather.

Toph smiled as she felt the breeze hit her face and run through her hair which she had yet to put back up into a bun. "You want to know something?" she asked Aang.

"What?" he said.

"I never realized how much of a good mood bending gets me into," she said with a smile still plastered onto her face.

Aang nodded. "I always thought that too. Between you and me, I've always kind of looked forward to earth bending with you. It makes me really happy at the end of the day."

Toph blushed slightly as she felt flattered by the thought. She had always thought that water bending was the highlight if his day. After all, seeing as the teacher behind the art was Katara, Toph always thought he preferred splashing around in a puddle rather than fainting out in the heat in the middle of a canyon.

Toph continued to lay there as the grass rolled in the wind around them. She turned her head slightly to face Aang. "Hey, could I ask you something?"

Aang turned his head towards Toph. "Sure," he said with a small smile.

"What were the people like at the Air Temples?"

Toph bit her lip when she heard that Aang didn't answer right away. She probably shouldn't have asked. It was a personal subject for him, she knew that. She immediately regretted the question. She was about to tell him that she was acting stupid and that he didn't have to answer. But she stood quiet when she heard him start to talk again.

He let out a soft chuckle. "No one's ever asked me about my people before," he said first. Toph stayed unwavering next to him, waiting patiently for him to answer.

Aang sighed. "I loved the Western Air Temple. I had so many friends there. We would always spend hours every day just playing games and hanging out. We used to have races through the temples, come up with different types of air bending moves, and just goof around. And the adults at the temple were never really bothered by it. In fact, they always smiled whenever they saw all of the kids enjoying themselves. Especially Gyatso." Aang stopped talking for a moment and Toph heard him let out a strangled sigh. But, he continued. "Gyatso was amazing. None of the people at the temple had parents. We were immediately sent off to separate temples once we were born, so I never had a father. But Gyatso was probably the closest thing to a father I had. We would spend every day together. He was mentor in more ways than one. While he taught me everything I know about air bending, he also taught me everything I know about life. He was never strict with me and he was always so understanding of what everyone had to say. He taught me how to play all sorts of games and tricks to play on people, and sometimes he would even help me. And everyone was just so free spirited at that place. No one ever seemed to be in a bad mood and we were always there for each other no matter what. Everyone there was knit together in a way that you don't see any more. It was great."

Toph didn't say anything after that. She let Aang travel through his childhood memories in peace. She thought about what he said though. She thought about the community there. How everyone at the temple would probably know every person there by name and face. How they would take time out of their day and talk to their friends, family, and maybe even people they didn't know. A close knit community. That's what Aang had called it. A group of people that treated every person around them like they were family. No one must have ever felt like they had been left out or alienated. It sounded just as good as he made it sound.

"It must be nice," she thought out loud.

"Hm?" Aang said, snapping out of his thoughts.

"It must be nice to live around people that are so close," she clarified. She sighed. "I wish people were that close in my family."

Aang frowned. "I'm sure your family is close," he assured.

Toph laughed. "Yeah right. My family would never be like yours. Always understanding of each other and caring about what the other person has to say. It just wouldn't happen," she ended.

Aang let his eyes drop away from Toph, whom he happened to be staring at this whole time. "Well…what was _your_ family like?" He silently hoped he hadn't struck a nerve with her.

Toph shrugged. "There's not much to tell. Mom and Dad were the richest people in Gaoling. That meant that they constantly had meetings, dinners, and teas with a lot of important people. We were the heads of all the economy issues in Gaoling. So when I was little, I was always ordered to stay in my room with guards staying post outside my door. They would never be done in the time they said. They would tell me to go upstairs and wait for half an hour until they were done. But the meetings would take all night. I always stayed up with the maids to play cards or listen to stories until I fell asleep." Toph chuckled. "You know now that I think about it, my parents have never tucked me into bed once."

Aang frowned again as Toph continued.

"Anyway, I rarely saw them to be honest. We would see each other at breakfast. We would almost always have lunch and dinner with guests and I would always have to leave when they got political. Then, they would ask me to come see them to report about my tutoring and my earth bending lessons. That would about do it in terms of our daily bonding. They were very over protective of me, but the maids and the guards were really the only people I spent all day with. My parents and I would barely speak to each other. They were always too busy to take me the least bit seriously."

Toph smiled. "I don't think you really understand the favor you did me when you knocked me out of the ring all those years ago."

Aang looked over at Toph to see her eyes filled with pain and loneliness. Aang felt sorry for her. He could imagine Toph as a little girl growing up without seeing her parent for more than an hour at a time. He could never imagine his life if Gyatso had been too busy to bother with him. What did that feel like? He always thought that Toph didn't appreciate her parents as much as she should have. But he now partially understood why she never liked being at home.

Aang spoke up. "I know they never understood you at home, but they're still your parents. Don't you think you should try to go back someday?"

Toph shook her head. "I don't know if that's really a good idea."

Aang shook his head with confusion. "But you had told me before that you thought that you had really hurt your parents when you left them. Don't you think you should at least see them? I mean it's been years."

Toph sat up and started pulling at a piece of grass in her fingers. She looked forward and let the wind blow her hair back. She sighed again and looked down, still playing with the dried up piece of grass.

"They never responded to my letter."

Aang sat up and gave her a questioning look. "When did you send them a letter?"

Toph ran her fingers through her hair at the top of her head. "Remember when we left the Fire Nation town that had arrested Katara and me after we scammed them?" She waited to hear Aang's affirmation before she continued. "Well, that night she helped me write a letter to my family. I told them that I was alright so that they didn't have to worry. Then I told them that I never got kidnapped, and that I ran away because I wanted to help you. I also ran away because I wanted to be free from home. I told them to send the hawk back with a letter so that I know that they weren't angry with me. I asked them if they could write _something_ back. But they never did."

"Well, maybe the letter didn't get to them. Or maybe they just forgot to respond," Aang said, trying to lighten up her mood. It didn't really work all too well.

Toph shook her head. "I thought that at first. But I talked to Zuko a little bit before the wedding. He had told me that he had personally sent one of his best messengers to give my parents an invitation to the Fire Lord's wedding. Zuko said he also made it a point to tell them that I would be there."

Toph snorted. "Can you believe those guys didn't even show up? I mean are they avoiding me or something? Do they not want to talk to me? Is there something _wrong_ with me? You know, it's stuff like this that makes me want to hate them all over again."

Aang didn't know what to say. He cast his gaze down and they stayed silent for a small while. Then he did something that he didn't think through too much. He grabbed Toph's shoulders roughly and forced her to face him. A look of shock quickly crossed her features as she felt him grab her. Aang started staring into her eyes while she stood frozen in place right in front of him. She didn't move as he stayed there, squeezing her shoulders and staring right at her. Toph quickly got her senses back when she realized the position she was in. "Twinkle Toes, what the heck are you—"

"Listen to me, alright?" he said seriously. "Stop thinking that your parents didn't pay attention to you because there was something the matter with you. There's nothing wrong with you. They just don't see the amazing person that you are right now. They chose to make you abandon that part of you. The part that can fight, hold her own, and protect the people she needs to. And it's their loss. So don't think that you're inadequate because they didn't treat you like a parent should have. And you can go see them when you're ready and not when anyone else tells you to. There's nothing wrong with you, okay?"

Toph blinked once, then twice. She couldn't believe what he had just said. It made her heart do flips in her chest. Her chest had started to hurt, but in a very good way. She was smiling on the inside and felt like laughing with joy as loud as she could. No one had ever told her anything like that before and it made her feel special to know that someone could say it. He was sincere and he wasn't lying. That's what made her happy the most. She smirked and gave Aang a light punch on the arm. She laughed a little when he playfully rubbed his arm.

"Thanks, Twinkle Toes," she smiled.

Aang laughed along with her. "No problem."

And so for the rest of the morning and all through the afternoon, the two had basked in conversations filled with jokes, laughs, and friendly arguments. Aang had finally gotten over the sour mood that he was in the night before and was enjoying himself completely for the first time since he had arrived here. Toph was of course completely happy that he was happy. And both of them had successfully accomplished what that wanted to. They had completely forgotten about their romantic relationships (or lack thereof) and were just happy enough to cherish a good friendship. And for those few hours, that's all that seemed to matter.

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**A/N: For those who follow my other story, please be patient with me. I'm extremely busy all over again and I really don't have much time to myself anymore. The next chapter is in the process, I swear to you. I'm really going to be more strict with myself and updates. **

***gets down on her knees and begs* Review!**


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N: *gets pelted with rocks and pointy things* Okay, okay, I get it! I'm late! What else is new!?**

**But seriosly, I'm so busy these days. School is being very unforgiving in terms of work load. And it doesn't help that it takes two hours by subway to get to school and to get home. So writing was not an option for this past month. Summer seems so far away...I miss my three month vacation...**

**Regarding TAL: later tonight. I promise. Maybe at around 10-ish. **

**Thank you for all of you who have been patient this entire time. Your reviews are so incredibly nice and I love every single one of them. New reviews are also extremely welcome. Onward to Chapter 3!**

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**It's More Than Enough**

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_**Chapter 3**_

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Toph's eyes began to crack open slowly as she heard a knock on her door. Whoever had the nerve to come to her room while she was still asleep was pounding on the door rather loudly. And that pounding started to echo all the way to the inside of her head. She groaned as she placed the pillow over her head and tried desperately to get some more sleep. It was still summer so Toph had the excuse to keep her windows open. It was the only way she could tell if it was morning or not. Usually, the sun woke her up in the morning, its warm light slowly trickling in through the window and hitting her face. The warmth that she would feel on her face in addition to the heat in her room would tell her that it was morning and that it was time to get up. But guess what? Her room was _freezing_. Apparently summer nights in the Fire Nation weren't all they were cracked up to be. It was always cold before the sun came up. And right now, Toph could feel the goose bumps forming on her legs.

She heard that infernal knock again. She groaned as she punched her pillow in frustration. Whoever this idiot was better have a darn good reason to wake her up this early. She tried not to make a sound. She breathed into her sheets as she hid her head underneath the pillow. Maybe if she was quiet enough, they would go away. Her head was still fuzzy from sleep and she really just needed to be dead to the world for a few more hours. Heck, maybe if she started to relax a little she could maybe ease herself back into sleep. She sighed in deeply. She heard the knock on the other side of the door, but she ignored it. Instead she relaxed her muscles and closed her eyes again. As soon as she was sure that she was totally melted in her sheets, she started to count back from a hundred. Iroh had told her that it helped with insomnia. So it was worth a try.

_Okay…relax…100…99…_

Two knocks sounded from the door.

…_98…97…96…_

Two more knocks.

Toph clutched her sheets and dug her nails into the mattress.

…_95…94…93…_

That _freaking knocking!_

…_92…91…90…_

One more knock.

"Oh, come on!" she screamed at the empty room.

Toph growled as she flung the sheets off of her. She felt around the foot of her bed for her green morning robe. She yanked the robe on over her shorts and shirt that served as her sleepwear. She grumbled to herself still while she tied the robe securely. She stomped over to the other end of the room and flung the door open with force. Her fingers were digging into the wood of the door as she gave whoever was on the other side the coldest glare that she could muster so early in the morning.

"What could you possibly want this early in the morning, Sugar Queen?" Toph said sternly.

Katara leaned back a little with wide eyes at Toph's sudden outburst. Toph's loose, long hair was tousled from being in bed and her eyes were still dreary from sleep. But somehow she still managed to throw a cold glare her way. She moved her fingers from doing any further damage to the door and had her arms crossed angrily across her chest. It was clear that Katara had woken the poor girl up when she clearly didn't want to be. And there was a rule about waking Toph up: don't do it. Toph liked to sleep in late. In fact, she sometimes slept in as late as noon before she had the nerve to get up and go on with her day. Katara noted that the sun was only peeking out from the horizon slightly. It was still cold outside so it must have been early. Katara cringed as she realized what she had just done. Toph was angry. But she needed to talk to her.

"Toph," the Fire Lady spoke. "I need your help with something serious. Can I come in and talk for a—"

_SLAM!_

Katara gaped at the door that had just slammed in her face. She clenched her fits by her side as she glared disbelievingly at the door. "D-did you just slam the door in my _face_!?"

No response came from the other side of the door as Toph ignored her.

Katara stomped her foot and growled loudly. She pounded the door with both of her fists and kicked the bottom of the door with her foot. "How can you be so _infuriating_!?"

Katara, lost in her rage, kept pounding on the door creating a huge amount of noise that the earth bender on the other side used all her willpower to ignore. Katara kept muttering to herself as she kept making unnecessary dents on the door when she suddenly stopped. She looked down at the door knob. She furrowed her eyebrows. Could the door be…?

She twisted the door knob. She half expected the knob not to go anywhere, showing that Toph had locked the door. But, the door had easily swung open giving her full view of the inside of Toph's room.

_I probably should've tried the door first..._ she thought slightly embarrassed.

Katara walked in and saw Toph quickly dive into bed, burying herself into her covers. She placed her pillow over her head and did her best to obscure herself from view under all of the silk sheets he was given. Katara had stood there tapping her foot on the ground, waiting for Toph to recognize that someone was in her room. Toph flinched each time Katara tapped her foot on the ground. It was even more annoying than the knocking if that was even possible. She had to give the water bender credit though. She was practically an expert at getting under people's skin. So it was only a matter of time until Toph had cracked.

"Ugh! Just go away! It's too early," Toph yelled, sitting up in her bed.

"Look, I'm sorry. But I needed to talk to you," Katara insisted.

Toph rolled her eyes. "If this has anything to do with you ranting about Zuko and your relationship, I am not kidding when I say I will _kill_ you."

Katara sat on the side of Toph's bed. "No, it has nothing to do with that. This is actually important," she told her.

"What could possibly be so important that you couldn't have waited a few more hours?" Toph asked.

"Oh, Toph," Katara said, rolling her eyes, "you really should work on that whole sleeping-until-the-afternoon problem that you have."

"It's not even dawn yet," Toph ground out between her teeth.

Katara immediately ignored her and cleared her throat. "Look, I don't know if you had noticed, but the Earth King didn't show up to the wedding."

"Of course I noticed," Toph chuckled. "You can smell that bear of his from a mile away."

Katara opened her mouth to say that Toph was being a bit rude, but quickly closed it since she knew that she was absolutely right. "Well…anyway…apparently he didn't show up because, according to the hawk he sent me, he had to take care of Bosco and stay with him. He must have come down with something and didn't want to leave him behind. That, or he'd rather spend time with his bear in the Earth Kingdom than go where his bear was uninvited."

Toph shook her head from confusion as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Wait a minute. I thought you said Bosco was more than welcome to come."

"Well," Katara hesitated, biting her lip. "Zuko and the Earth King kind of have a...um…_history_," she finished lamely.

"What do you mean when you say _history_?" Toph asked, standing up from her bed. She walked over to the side of her room and flung open her closet door. She stepped inside, pushing aside copious amounts of robes, pants, tunics, dresses, skirts, and other silk garments that she couldn't decipher. Her whole wardrobe was prepared for her upon her arrival at the Fire Palace. Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation tailors had personally made Toph a full wardrobe for her to wear during her stay and even included an impressive collection of shoes that were lined on the bottom of her closet. As Toph trudged through the forest of fabric that was her closet, she kicked aside the shoes and pushed all of the impressively embroidered dresses, skirts, and robes out of the way. After all she had no intention of wearing them.

Katara peeked into the closet from her seat on the bed. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for something to wear. It's obvious that I'm not going back to sleep," she grumbled back. Her voice came out muffled from being covered in so many clothes.

"Here. Let me pick out something that matches," Katara offered, walking over to Toph's closet and joining her inside.

"You know," Toph muttered from one corner of the closet, "I'm really not into the whole monumentally-sized wardrobe you have for me. I'm not even going to wear a quarter of this stuff."

"Don't look at me," Katara answered back, sifting through the rows of clothes, trying to find a decent outfit that Toph would actually wear. "My lady-in-waiting got a little out of control. I asked her to pick a sensible wardrobe out for you. Nothing too fancy. But apparently she didn't get the message."

"Tell me about it," Toph muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Anyway, what kind of history does Sparky and that whack-job of an Earth King have?" Toph asked again.

"Oh, right. Well, it happened a few months ago actually. Zuko was going to visit the Earth King to talk about some important stuff. Kuei had suggested this whole new trade agreement between the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom that he wanted to discuss with Zuko. I really don't know the details behind it since I told Zuko I wasn't going. I didn't want to have to follow any of that confusing stuff unless I had to. I wasn't Fire Lady yet. Anyway, according to what Zuko had told me, he and Kuei never got to talk about anything. Once the two of them sat down to enjoy the feast that Kuei had prepared for his arrival, he started prattling on and on about what life on the road with Bosco was like, what they ate, what they did, where they slept. And to make matters worse, Bosco was seated right next to him. Bosco was drooling and spilling his food all over Zuko's plate. And you know his short temper. He was clearly really annoyed between the constant talking and the bear."

Toph snorted. "Yeah, that would about put him over the edge, wouldn't it?"

Katara sighed, stepping out of the closet with Toph's clothes in her arms, Toph following her out. "You have no idea." Katara had laid out a long pair of dark green pants with gold embroidery on the hem of the pants with a matching green tunic and a lighter green undershirt. "Do you still wear ankle and wrist bands?" she asked.

Toph shrugged. "Sure."

Katara nodded and went back into Toph's closet, now off to search for accessories. Toph walked over to the drawer set near the closet and opened it up, looking for her bindings. "So did Sparky finally blow his fuse or what?" she called.

"Apparently, he had lost it about halfway through the dinner. He stood up on his feet and kindly asked Kuei to get his bear out of the room so that he and his officials could eat in peace. Now he told me he did it nicely, but I'm not so sure he did as nicely as he said. Kuei got extremely offended. He started defending Bosco saying that it wasn't his fault if his table manners were in need of a little improvement. As long as Bosco was in the Earth Palace, he was welcome at the table without any hesitation. So Kuei refused to talk to anyone but his bear throughout the rest of the meal and Zuko found it a waste of time to continue staying there. So he left and went back to the Fire Nation, practically bending fire because he was so annoyed and angry." Katara sighed. "I wish he would just control that temper of his."

Toph laughed. "Yeah, keep wishing. Let me know when it starts working."

Katara emerged from the closet with a set of gold bands that were kept in a large case that contained all of Toph's jewelry (half of which was sure to be unused once she left.) She threw Toph's bands on her bed and sat back down on the bed while Toph climbed on the bed and started to wrap her bindings. Katara propped her feet up onto the bed and leaned against the bed pot at the foot of the bed. "Well, that was a fascinating story," Toph started. "But I would just like to know what the point was at waking me up so early," she asked, annoyance lacing her voice.

"Well, I felt bad that Kuei didn't come. He didn't tell me why exactly he had to stay behind with Bosco, but still. So I told him that _I_ would personally bring him an escort of his choice so that he could come to the palace as _my_ invited guest. I had to keep Zuko out of the loop on this one. I just hope he doesn't get too upset that I brought him here," Katara wondered.

"So how is he getting here?" Toph asked, pulling on her undershirt and her tunic.

Katara bit her lip and looked away. "Well, I _may _have told him he could have any escort of his choice…"

Toph slowly turned her head towards Katara. "You didn't," she said in a dangerously low voice.

Katara just shrugged and looked away with a guilty look on her face as she sat on the bed. She stiffened, waiting for the impending explosion from Toph. But instead, the earthbender quickly pulled on her pants and her jewelry. She pulled her hair up into a very messy bun, not even bothering to comb her hair and started to make her way over to the door. Katara stood up off of the bed and followed her. "Where are you going?"

Toph opened the door and started walking down the hallway, Katara quickly following. "I'm going to go hide," Toph replied. "There is no way I'm sitting on the same bison as that Earth King. I might just jump off simply to get some peace and quiet." Toph kept walking through the hallways, thinking of a decent room to hide in until Appa was long gone and realized that Katara was still following. She stopped and turned her head towards her.

"You really shouldn't be following. That defeats the purpose of me hiding."

Katara brought her hands up in defense. "Look, I kind of figured you didn't want to go. That's not why I woke you." Toph raised an eyebrow in confusion, and Katara quickly explained.

"I can't find Aang. He's usually up by now and no one in the palace seems to know where he is… _again_. I just wanted you to find him and tell him all of this for me. You always seem to know what he's up to lately," Katara elaborated.

Toph shrugged. "That monk could be anywhere. He tends to go places where he knows no one will find him," she told her. It was true. Aang really liked to be alone. She didn't know if it was he liked the solitude or maybe he just need some time to think lately, but she was really the only other person who could ever find him. The same thing worked the other way. He was the only one that was ever able to find her. It was strange, but they knew more about each other than everyone else did. Not even Katara, who used to be so caught up in making sure Aang was safe, could really tell where the monk was hiding anymore. She never gave much thought to it before. It was just something that she grew to get used to over the years. After spending so much time with one person, you tend to get know all of their habits extremely well.

"Well," Katara asked, "when you do find him, can you tell him to leave as soon as possible? Preferably today? I kind of want to get this whole thing over with. I'm going to have to prepare for his arrival to," she ended with a sigh.

"Sure thing, Sweetness," Toph assured. She turned and started to find her way out of the guest quarters of the palace.

"Of course, if you want to go with because you're dying to see the Earth King I wouldn't mind," Katara said in a joking tone.

Toph turned and glared at her, though she was still smiling. "Yeah, and then when I'm done, I'll go have a tea party with the Sand Benders."

Katara laughed and waved to Toph as the two walked in the opposite direction. Toph walked on, a small smile on her face. Even though the conversation she had with Katara over tea still hung in her mind, she couldn't deny that during moments like this, they were still best friends. And, though it was extremely hard to admit it, it was kind of hard to stay mad at your best friend for too long

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Because of her less-than-desired-for wake up call, when Toph walked outside of the palace, the sun was only just coming up. The birds had just started waking up and stretching out their voices and the grass was getting warmer under her feet. She walked through the garden that was located at the back of the palace and started to walk along the path the led through all of the bushes, trees, and ponds that were filling the area. Toph passed a large pond that had stones bordering the edges as well as trees surrounding it. She could only guess that this was Katara's Koi pond. As she walked forward a little more, the path branched off towards a large area that was separated by the rest f the garden by large stone walls and one wooden door. She smiled as she passed by her training arena. Memories of the fight she had with Aang yesterday started flooding back as she made her way to the grounds.

It was early in the morning, which meant that Aang was most likely watching the sunset right about now. He had told her that he used to do it back at the temple all of the time and it seemed the perfect way to start off a new day. Of course she could never really understand the appreciation behind watching the sun rise, but she took Aang's word for it. She passed the valley they had spent yesterday in and started making her way up the hill that Katara had said had an amazing view of the Eastern horizon. The wind started blowing through her clothes and through her hair as she climbed up to the top of the hill. Sure enough, just as she expected, Aang was sitting on his stomach, facing the horizon.

Without a word, Toph lied down on her back next to Aang and let her head hang of the edge of the hill. She closed her eyes as she felt the sun hit her face. Aang didn't seem to protest, he just kept staring out towards the sun with her. Toph turned to Aang and laid her hands on her stomach. She crossed one leg over the other and sighed.

"What is it about a sunrise that calms you down so much?" she asked.

She felt Aang shrug. "I dunno. I guess it was just a habit that I got used to when I was younger. I liked watching the sun all of a sudden come up from the hills like magic and I guess I just never stopped doing it. Besides, it's nice to see something so beautiful once in a while."

Toph nodded. "Makes sense I guess. Though I wouldn't really know."

Aang turned his head towards Toph. "Not that I don't enjoy your company, but did you need something?"

Toph stretched her arms over her head and let them hang over her head off the edge. "Yeah, actually. Katara needs a favor."

Aang's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "With what?"

"Did you remember that the Earth King didn't show up to the wedding?"

Aang nodded and laughed a little. "I figured as much. You can tell when Bosco walks into the room." Toph laughed at the fact that they both happened to think the same thing. Or maybe it was partially because that was how everyone knew of the Earth King's arrival.

"Anyway," Toph continued, "he didn't show because apparently Zuko and Kuei had some spat a few months back."

"You mean that whole thing with the dinner?" Aang asked.

Toph nodded. "Yeah, how did you know?"

"Zuko had talked to me about it yesterday. I asked why the Earth King didn't show up and he said that the two of them were on bad terms after he insulted Bosco. Apparently Kuei is really sensitive about him," Aang reasoned.

Toph assented. "Well yeah. He threw an entire birthday bash for him. If that's not obsession I don't know what is."

"Well I wouldn't call it obsession," Aang answered back. "I guess it's more of…an unhealthy attachment."

Toph rolled her eyes. "They're practically the same thing," she muttered.

Aang flipped over on his back and brought his arms behind his head. "Whatever. So what do I have to do?"

"Well, Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes decided to be all nice and sweet and invited him over. She's going to have this big party when he comes over to hopefully make up for the fact that Sparky acted like an insensitive jerk. And to top it all off, she gave Kuei an escort of his own choice."

Aang turned his head towards Toph, obviously not needing any further elaborating on what she meant. "He wants to ride on Appa again?"

Toph shook her head. "Yeah, I'm not sure about him."

Aang sighed. "So she's sending me all the way to the Earth Kingdom to take Kuei and Bosco over to the Fire Nation palace, because she feels bad for Zuko insulting them?"

Toph nodded.

"I can understand that. I guess she does kind of owe him. So when does she want him over?" he asked.

"I think she said that you should probably leave today. She said the sooner the better," Toph told him.

Aang nodded but didn't say anything after that for awhile. Aang looked over at Toph laying down next to him. She still had her legs crossed and her arms were hanging over the edge as well as her head. But she had her eyes closed, her face looking towards the sunrise that she couldn't see. Aang noticed that she did that a lot. She liked to feel the sun on her face. He had questioned her about once before, and she simply responded that it felt nice on her face. He supposed it compensated for the fact that she couldn't see it. Aang never paid much attention to how the sun felt on his face, if he was being honest. He just liked to stare at it and watch the colors mix together to show a wonderful display of beauty. But maybe there was more to it than that. Not only looking at a sunrise, but feeling it. Aang nudged Toph lightly.

"Hm?" she responded, keeping her eyes closed.

"Do you like doing that?" he asked.

"Do what?"

"Appreciating things that everyone else normally wouldn't appreciate," he asked her.

Toph brought one of her hands up and started biting her thumb nail. She furrowed her eyebrows in thought as she responded. "I don't know. I've never really thought about it."

"Like what you're doing now. You don't look at the sunrise, you feel it. You don't focus on a person's looks, you focus on their personality. I'm asking if it's something that you like doing."

Toph shrugged, still biting her nail. "I guess so. You find out a lot more about something if you do more than just look at it. Like take that mountain for example," she said, pointing in front of her. Aang shifted back in order to allow his had to hang over the edge of the hill along with hers. He followed her finger towards a large mountain that was lying against the horizon about a half of a mile away.

"Alright, what about the mountain?" he asked, not sure what she was trying to prove.

"What do you see?" she asked.

Aang looked at her in confusion. "What do you mean 'what do I see'? I see a mountain."

Toph punched his upper arm hard and hard Aang yelp when her fist made contact. "Idiot. I know that you see a mountain. But when you look at the mountain what do you see?"

Aang nodded and looked back towards the horizon. "Well, there's a nice valley underneath it. It's got a lot of bushes and trees at the bottom. It starts to lead up really smoothly, but the path gets really steep at around the middle of the mountain. The sunrise makes it almost glow. If you were to look at it any other day, the rocks would only look grey. But now that the sun is just coming up, you can see that it has a golden color to it as well as the grey it normally is. And it makes the mountain glow. It's really beautiful actually."

Toph nodded. "Well, that's what your impression of the mountain is. And as you can imagine, I have no idea what you're talking about when you say it glows. But do you want to know what _I_ see?"

"What?" he asked.

"A maze."

Aang shook his head. "A _maze_?"

Toph nodded. "Yup. From what I can feel, there are millions of tunnels just winding through the inside of that whole mountain. They keep criss-crossing over each other and they lead up all the way up to the top. There are even small caves that the tunnels lead into. The entrance to the tunnels is right around the bottom of the mountain and it's blocked up by this huge stone. It's really cool. I can just picture myself running through all of them and getting lost. That'd be a perfect way to spend the day. Can you feel them?"

Aang stopped a moment and closed his eyes. He let himself sink into the earth until he could feel the vibration of nature around him. He tapped the ground and felt the vibrations branch out into the ground. He was able to make out Toph, a few birds, and the palace some ways away. He tapped the ground a little harder until he was able to feel the mountain Toph was talking about. Sure enough, he was able to feel the tunnels and caves that she was talking about. They were truly amazing. They twisted in circles and curves and no one tunnel went exactly the same way. She was right. An earth bender like Toph could have a field day in there, just running through the mountain and feeling her way through all of the complicated turns.

"Yeah, I can see it," Aang answered. "You're right. It does look pretty cool."

Toph nodded. "That's my point. You wouldn't have been able to know about those tunnels by just looking at the mountain. You have to get inside things to understand them I guess."

Aang assented. "I guess you're right."

Toph turned to him. "Why the sudden question? I mean not that I mind or anything. It just seemed a little random."

Aang shrugged. "It just always sort of bugged me and I wanted to finally ask. Or maybe it was just an excuse to talk to you." He sat up from his place on the ground and got up to his feet. He brushed his pants off stretched his arms over his head.

Toph sat up and sat on her knees. "Where are you going?"

"I've got to get Appa ready if we're going to be leaving today to go get the Earth King," he responded.

Toph shook her head. "Wait a minute. _We_?"

Aang nodded. "Yeah. I want you to come with me."

Toph ignored the fact that this meant she would have to be on the same bison as Kuei and Bosco, something that she was trying to avoid at all costs. Aang had just asked her to come with him, when he very well could have gone alone. Her heart started pounding against her chest.

"Why?" she asked.

Aang shrugged. "It'll be way to boring without you. I could use the company," he smiled.

Toph smiled and shrugged. "Sure, why not? I've got nothing else to do. I'll go find you when you're done, I guess."

Aang nodded with a smile and raced off to the stables, leaving Toph behind sitting on the hill. She thought back to what she had just told him. He just wanted an excuse to talk to her. And now with the trip to the Earth Kingdom, it could be the perfect excuse to hang out even more. The thought caused Toph to blush a little. It was the perfect time to lighten his mood and maybe just spend time together as friends. It would be just like their days at the temple. Talking and laughing until the day was over. That thought made Toph smile even more.


	5. Chapter 4

**A/N: Hello everyone!~~ Miss me?**

**You all have no idea how upset I was when I had to put my stories on hold for so long. I really didn't want to do it, but things were getting hectic. But lucky for you all, I'm in a severely creative mood right now. That means, I'll be dishing out a lot of updates for the next few days to make up for the absence. I want to thank everyone who has reviewed, who's faved the story, who has put it on their alerts, or whoever is even bothering to read it. It still means a lot to me and I appreciate the support. **

**Just so you know, this is my longest chapter yet (17 pages on Word!!!). I hope you all like it. And of course, a million thanks to Pyrozia for being an amazing Beta. Thank you again, my dear!**

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**It's More Than Enough**

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**_Chapter 4_**

* * *

Seeing as how Zuko was obviously going to be kept out of the loop in terms of the Earth King for as long as was humanly possible, the Fire Lady found it best to allow The Earth King's escort to leave as discreetly as possible. She figured that once the bison left it would give Zuko an enormous amount of time to blow off some steam. Three days was probably more than enough time. No one, not even the hot-headed Fire Lord, could stay angry for that long over something so trivial as a dinner spat. Toph didn't say anything when Katara told her all of this, but she knew that her friend's overly optimistic nature was going to come back and haunt her sooner or later.

So before anyone was allowed to leave, there was still one goal to be accomplished…

…they had to distract Zuko.

"Alright. Before you go in and leave a wake of destruction in your path, I need to lay down a few rules," Katara instructed, pacing back and forth in her private quarters.

"You make it sound like I'm going to go kill somebody," Toph muttered, rolling her eyes.

"Look, you have a habit of taking things to a whole new level. Remember that time when we were visiting Iroh's tea shop and I told you there were two guys following us? Then they started hitting on both of us and I told you to just walk away?"

Toph averted her eyes. "…Yes."

"And instead of listening to me, what did you do?"

Toph scratched her head. "Hehe…I buried them in a ditch…ten feet deep…"

"Exactly," Katara scolded. "They were the sons of two noblemen living in Ba Sing Se. We had to pay both of their fathers off just so they wouldn't get us kicked out of the city."

Toph scoffed. "You mean _I_ paid them off. You probably contributed two silver pieces compared to the fifty gold pieces I had to dish out."

Katara growled. "That's not the point Toph. The point is that you have to calm down about things like that. You're going to get yourself into serious trouble one day. I mean look at that entire town you scammed just to get quick money. You wound up getting arrested!"

"That was your fault. I wouldn't have gotten caught otherwise," Toph argued again, crossing her arms.

Katara buried her face in her hands. "Forget it. Just, don't do anything that will cause any permanent damage to anybody. And don't do anything that's going to be hard to clean and cover up. Try to avert his attention in the most discreet way possible, alright?"

Toph shrugged. "I don't know," she pondered. "What do I get in return for covering your butt?"

Katara looked confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Look at it this way," Toph explained. "What would happen if Zuko caught us leaving on Appa right now? All Aang and I would have to say was that we were following direct orders from the Fire Lady. Then you'd be forced to explain to Hot Head why we were going to the Earth Kingdom to go get the Earth King. Aang and I are not the ones that need to distract Zuko. You're the one that needs to avert his attention in order to save you the long and unwanted explanation. And are you the one distracting him? No. I am. So, again I ask: what do I get in return for helping you?"

Katara bit her lip with apprehension. "Well, what do you want?"

Toph smirked. "I am in the Fire Palace. I can practically ask for anything I want, right?"

Katara rubbed her temples. "You can't just _demand_ anything you want. But I guess I can make a deal with you."

Toph nodded in affirmation. "I'm listening."

"I'll make your daily wake-up call a half-hour later."

"No way," Toph refused. "That's practically nothing. Make it two hours."

"Absolutely not," Katara insisted. "That's far too late for you to be getting up. As it is, it takes you an hour to get ready in the morning. Honestly, that's completely unreasonable."

Toph leaned back in the arm chair she was sitting in, folding her hands behind her head. "Look, if you want me to delay Sparky's explosion for as long as possible, I expect some compensation. I want two extra hours of sleep in the mornings. And don't you even think of sending anyone within the immediate area of my bedroom door before that time." Toph smirked. "Those are my terms."

Katara tried again. "Forty-five minutes."

"An hour and a half."

"One hour!"

"Hm…alright," Toph agreed. "One hour, and fifty silver pieces."

Katara sighed. "What in the world could you possibly need money for if you have so much of it already?" she asked, almost afraid of the answer.

"That's my business!" she insisted. "I don't tell you how to live your life. An extra hour of sleep and fifty silver pieces: take it or leave it."

Katara groaned. "Fine."

"Excellent," Toph smiled.

"Just…don't do anything rash or irresponsible with it, alright?"

"Yes, Mommy," Toph mocked, laughing lightly.

Katara rolled her eyes. "Alright. How are you going to do this?"

Toph leaned back in her chair and tapped her chin in thought. "Well that depends."

Katara lifted a brow. "On what, exactly."

"Where your husband is right now," she stated while she tucked her feet underneath her on the chair.

Katara seated herself on the footrest across from the Earth Bender. "Let's see," she pondered, chewing on her nail. "Our best bet is his study room. After all, he has been working a lot lately. If not for the fact that the window in his study overlooks the entire courtyard of the palace and he would easily see you both when you decided to leave, you could probably just sneak on out right now. But you know how Zuko is."

Toph chuckled, shaking her head. "You don't have to tell me twice." Next to Toph herself, Zuko was probably the most observant and detail-oriented person she knew. Everything had to be done according to plan or not at all, and he noticed the littlest of details. He would've easily picked up on their absence if he had a view of the stables from his study. In fact, Katara had confided in Toph to keep it a secret that it was Zuko, not Katara, who had done the majority of the wedding planning.

Now that was a frightening thought.

"Doesn't he have guards posted outside his door or something?" Toph asked.

The Fire Lady shook her head. "That won't be much of a problem. The guards should be switching shifts right now. Besides, all of the guards in this palace are admittedly terrible procrastinators. Especially the guards that should be finishing up right now: Ling and Cheng. They always go down to the kitchen after their shifts and get a drink before they inform the other guards that they need to go to their posts. That leaves us a little over fifteen minutes to go and do what we have to do." Toph simply nodded in response.

"So," Katara asked, still chewing on her finger nail, "any ideas?"

Toph nodded in response. "A few." She stopped and thought. "Though I'm sure you'll disagree with most of them. So in reality, just two," she said, holding up her pointer and middle finger with her right hand.

She waited for a response from the woman across from her. "Alright, that seems simple enough. What are our options?"

Toph held her pointer finger with her other hand. "Well, your first option is to let me sneak into his study and swiftly knock him into unconsciousness."

Katara blanched. "How?"

"Well, there are actually a multitude of options," Toph smiled, rocking back in forth in excitement. She started ticking off more fingers with each example she gave. "I can make something fall on his head from the ceiling, slip something into his morning tea, dump the contents of the laundry baskets into his room and hope the smell is enough to put him under…oh! We could trip him and hope his head hits the side of the desk. Or we could even swing something at him."

Katara gaped, at a loss for words. "Are you _insane_!?"

Toph was still lost in her thoughts, completely ignoring Katara's outburst. "We could push him down the stairs…"

Katara stood up and slammed her hands on either arm rest of the chair Toph was sitting in. "This is my _husband _we're talking about! I just got married to him. I don't want him dead!"

Toph snapped her fingers. "I got it! Ty Lee showed me some pointers on that whole pressure point thing. Apparently, if you hit a person right here…" Toph paused and tapped Katara's skull, somewhere behind her right ear. "…it's guaranteed to put the person out."

"Toph…you are not knocking Zuko out," she said slowly, enunciating every word as if she were talking to a child. Although, since it was Toph, she may have well been doing exactly that.

"Fine. Then that leaves option number two," she said, holding up two fingers again and wiggling them in Katara's face.

Katara hung her head, still keeping her arms on Toph's seat. "Which would be?"

"We lock Zuko in his room."

Katara groaned. "Toph we are not…" She paused. She backed away from Toph and sat back down on the footrest. She nodded for a while and then smiled, coming to a conclusion. "Actually, that may just work. He won't even dare burn down the door. He had two dragons engraved on the surface of the door. It's absolutely beautiful. He wouldn't dare ruin it after it cost him so much money. So we will have to let him out of there eventually," she added.

Toph waved off her comment. "Look, that's your problem. Aang and I will have left already. All of the after-effects of locking him in his study will be left in your hopefully-capable hands."

Katara pouted. "I'm capable of pulling off a joke!"

"Yeah. And look where that got us: in a wooden jail cell."

Katara huffed out an annoyed breath as she stood up from her seat. "Can we just do this already?"

Toph shrugged. "Whatever you say, Sugar Queen." And with that she opened the door of Katara's bedroom and made her way to Zuko's study room, Katara following her out.

----------

Zuko pushed aside another large pile of scrolls to the far left corner of his desk. He had already reviewed all of the subjects' requests sent to the Fire Palace. He averted his eyes to the right side of his desk and stared at the mountain of scrolls that was twice as big as the one he pushed aside. He had yet to even touch the foreign requests sent from the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes which had only arrived just this morning.

Zuko placed his elbows on his desk and rubbed his temples.

He wouldn't be leaving his study anytime soon.

His Uncle had sworn to him that being the Fire Lord was a fulfilling and rewarding experience. He had said that he was lucky to have the opportunity to rebuild a broken nation and start from scratch. It gave him the chance to finally sculpt the Fire Nation in his image: the way _he_ wanted it.

Unfortunately, that translated into a load of paperwork for him.

The Fire Lord sighed and sifted through the ominous pile of paper. Funding requests, building permits, trade agreements, laws, contracts, enlightening ideas, deadlines, warnings, threats, and the occasional letter from Uncle. Zuko clicked his tongue against his teeth. Katara would absolutely murder him if he stayed in here past lunch. But if she could just realize the magnitude of the responsibility that was firmly planted on his shoulders, she would understand why he was being overworked so much. The stress was just killing him.

Suddenly he heard shuffling coming from the other side of his study door. He looked at the crack on the bottom of the door and saw two shadows moving around on the other side of the door. Zuko narrowed his eyes. His private study was secured in his quarters. Only a select few guards and, of course, his wife were allowed access to it. He turned back to his work on his desk, probably thinking it was two of the new guards coming to cover their new post.

It was then that he heard giggling on the other side of the door.

Someone else had shushed the other giggling person, and quietly telling them to be quiet. It sounded like a girl speaking, but the thick wooden door was muffling the sounds of their voices, so it was hard to make out specifically who they were.

The doors started rattling, as if someone was trying to force them open. It was strange, because the doors weren't locked—although now Zuko was terribly regretting keeping them unlocked. He cleared his throat. "Who's out there?"

The rattling became frantic and louder after he had spoken, as if the person on the other side was in a state of panic. Zuko strode over to the large door and was about to yank it open in order to give whoever it was outside a piece of his mind. He was stressing out of his mind right now. He didn't need some childish fools disrupting his work, no matter how reluctant he was to do it.

He pulled on the handles of his study doors, but something was strange. He pulled on the handles again.

The doors wouldn't budge.

Zuko yanked harder on the circular handles and tried his hardest to pry the doors open. But they remained rooted in their closed position, showing no intentions of opening. He banged on the doors and shouted. "Someone!? Who's out there? Open this door immediately."

This time, he heard two girls giggling outside. The giggles soon turned into full blown laughter as they headed away from the door. The laughing became fainter and fainter until it could no longer be heard. Zuko heard a loud bang that signaled that the door to his quarters had been shut. He kept trying to pull the doors open with little success.

Zuko had tried to peek into the crack that was in between the two double doors. His golden eyes managed to catch a small glimpse of his master bed, his bedside desk, and his wardrobe from the crack in the doors. Before he was about to shout again for help, he noticed something silver in front of his eyes. Wrapped around the door handles on the other side of the door were metal chains. Zuko pulled on the handles extremely hard and managed to hear the metal links clanging together. With an irritated growl, he yanked furiously at the door handles and tried to force the doors open. He even opted for ramming his shoulder into the door, hoping to break it down. But it was useless. The door was completely locked. And he had no way of getting out.

"Somebody let me out!" he yelled again. No response.

It was at that moment that Zuko's stress levels went completely out the roof.

----------

Toph and Katara hurried out of the palace doors and were met with a blinding sun that was high in the sky. They briefly acknowledged the guards posted in front of the palace doors before they crossed the large courtyard towards the doors that led to the large stables.

Katara laughed into her hands as they walked together. "Do you think he's mad?"

Toph shook her head. "Are you kidding me? He's probably blowing a fuse right now. I think we just made his already hectic day even more hectic."

"Oh he'll be fine," Katara insisted, smiling in Toph's direction. "I'll let him out once you guys leave and say that it was probably someone playing a joke on him."

Katara froze in her spot. "Do you think he knew it was us?" she asked nervously as an afterthought.

"Well, he probably has his suspicions now, thanks to _someone_ giggling before I even got the door locked," Toph reminded, her blind eyes set into a glare.

Katara stuttered angrily. "B-B-But you laughed too!"

Toph rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Details, details." She placed her hands in her pocket and slouched forward and kept walking. Katara sucked her teeth and kept walking in step with Toph until they reached the stables.

"Hey, look! Aang's out with Appa already." Katara tapped Toph on the shoulder and grabbed her arm. She ran towards the gigantic flying bison that was currently being led into the open courtyard by the Air Bender.

"Aang!" Katara shouted, causing Aang to look behind him and wave at the two approaching figures.

Aang let go of the reigns that he was pulling Appa along with before giving them a final tug, making sure they were tight and secured. He dusted off his hands and walked over to the front of the stables.

"I haven't seen you in a couple of days," Katara told him. "Are you all set?" she asked with a bright smile.

"Well, everything's ready. All we have to do is leave," Aang announced. He looked around briefly. "Where's Zuko?"

Katara and Toph froze and exchanged looks. "Um…" Katara started.

"He's got another meeting with the Fire Sages," Toph interrupted. "He won't be out for awhile, but he sends his regards and hopes we have a safe trip." Toph elbowed Katara's arm and gave a fake smile. "Isn't that right, Katara?"

"Ouch," she whispered, rubbing her arm. "Yeah, he apologized for not being able to skip the meeting. But I'll be sure to tell him that you guys left safely," she promised.

Aang gave a skeptical look at the two girls, but it quickly disappeared as he nodded, seemingly agreeing with their story. "Alright. Well, come on Toph," he gestured towards her. "We better get on out of here. The sooner the better, right?"

"You got it," Toph agreed, giving a mock salute. Toph climbed swiftly on top of Appa and nestled herself comfortably in the saddle. Aang jumped on top of Appa's head and grabbed the reigns in his hands.

"Try to be back within the week, alright? I kind of want this over and done with, if you know what I mean," Katara shouted, hands cupped around her mouth.

"Nah, don't worry, Sweetness," Toph assured. "We'll be back in no time. Just make sure you're ready for that crazy King and his bear. Your little party ought to be a blast."

Toph laughed a little when she saw Katara's eyes grow a bit apprehensive, but the Fire Lady quickly shook it off. "Just leave before I regret what I'm doing."

Aang nodded and pulled on the reigns. "See you in a few days!" Aang called back, before lifting Appa off of the ground and into the sky, leaving the Fire Palace behind them.

Katara looked back at the palace doors before she started slowly making her way back inside. First, she'd have to let Zuko out of his study before he caused some damage. Then she'd have to avoid him for the rest of the week while she played the Party Planner. She was almost sure that Zuko and his highly attentive nature would pick up on the fact that she was preparing for a celebration, in which case she'd have to lie and tell him that the annoying bear-loving Earth King wasn't coming to the palace, and it was just a close friend of hers. Of course that lie wouldn't last long once Aang and Toph came back, in which case she'd have to explain why she lied, and why she invited the Earth King in the first place.

She sighed, hung her head, and slouched her shoulders forward. _What did I get myself into this time_?

----------

Toph leaned against the front of the saddle with her arms propped on the edge, facing in the direction where Aang was sitting. They had been flying for what probably felt like an hour, and the wind had been blowing full force. It had been buzzing past her ears at incredible volumes for the past hour, making it almost impossible to relax. Every time she had tried to sit back and close her eyes for a moment, the loud, random gusts of air kept her from clearing her head like she had wanted to. Thankfully, they had managed to fly at a steady pace and the wind had stopped for the most part. All that was left was a slow, steady breeze as they floated right underneath the clouds. Toph drummed her fingers against the material of the saddle and looked up towards Aang.

"How long do you think it'll take to get there?" she asked. Aang was leaning back against Appa's fur, the reigns lying forgotten at his side. The route would be pretty straightforward for the next few miles, so Aang felt keeping his grip on Appa unnecessary and just let him fly freely.

Aang shrugged and looked up towards the sky in thought. "Probably three days. I can't imagine the trip taking any longer than that."

"How do you think Sparky's going to react once he lays eyes on the Earth King?" Toph smiled.

Aang let out a short laugh. "I bet he won't even come to the party. Zuko has much too much pride. There is no way he'd subject himself to apologizing to Kuei. And trust me, judging by Kuei's character, he's going to force Zuko to apologize to both him and his bear." Aang flipped over and spread out on his stomach, watching Toph stare off into space with her sea green eyes.

Toph nodded and smiled. "You're probably right. And anyway, Sugar Queen will probably drag Sparky down there whether he wanted to or not. It's bad enough he insulted the Earth King once. Not coming down to greet him would just be a mess on top of a bigger mess." Aang nodded and started playing with the tufts of fur that he could reach.

"When are we leaving there for good, anyway?" Toph had asked.

Aang lifted his head slightly. "Are you that bored?"

"No it's not that," she explained, rolling over to lie on her back. "I just kind of miss working on the temple, you know? Dealing with all of Katara's servants, the wake up calls, the guests, the nobles walking in and out of the palace like they own the place…it just gets annoying after a while," she finished.

"I know what you mean," Aang agreed, looking out ahead of him to stare at what they had previously just flown by and left behind them. "I was never one for the luxurious life. There's too much pressure in terms of making sure that you remain prim and proper all the time. And you're right. Having a crowd of people waiting on you hand and foot is irritating." Aang gestured towards Toph. "I mean look at you. There's a fan club of servants and maids just waiting for the chance to pick out your clothes just because you're the Bei Fong heiress."

Toph laughed. "Oh, please. Like there isn't a group of people that would kill to bring you your morning tea every day, Mr. All Powerful Avatar."

Aang nodded and smirked. "Point taken. I _am_ all powerful." Toph smacked his head which had him laughing.

"Besides, there's almost nothing to do in that palace. At least back at the temples we can practically do whatever we please," Toph pointed out.

"Well, Katara will probably want the Earth King to stay at the palace for a few days after he arrives. Once he's ready to go back to Ba Sing Se, we'll drop him off and head straight back to the temples." Aang leaned up on his elbows so that he was eye level with Toph. "That okay with you?"

Toph jumped slightly to hear Aang's voice so close by, but she nodded and held out her hand. "It's a deal." Aang smiled as he shook her hand in agreement. He slid back down to Appa's head to see how much ground they had covered in the past hour. It would only take them the rest of the day to reach the shoreline of the Fire Nation. Then, once they were on the edge of the island, they could make camp for the night. Then it'd just be a lot of water travel until they reached the Earth Kingdom. Below him, Aang could see the woods that lined some of the more barren and uninhabited areas of the Fire Nation. He looked ahead of him to see if he could see the rest of the forest. It stretched on towards the horizon, and he could tell that it probably went on for another few miles.

It was then that he noticed a strange clearing in the distance. It wasn't like the natural clearings that he could see dotted the woods. This one seemed to be lacking in any growth at all. There were no trees, no grass, no plants, and no animals. Plus, this one seemed to stretch on from the left side of his line of vision all the way to the right. It was almost like a straight strip of barren wasteland.

"What is that?" he asked out loud.

"What's wrong?" Toph asked, leaning over the edge of the saddle.

Aang furrowed his brow. "I'm not sure. There's a portion of a forest up ahead that just has a horizontal strip that's completely barren. There's no life on it whatsoever. It goes for as far as I can see." He looked from side to side again and saw that the strip of forest stretched on sideways for at least another half mile.

Toph slowly turned her head towards him. "You don't think…"

Aang nodded. "That's what I'm afraid of, too. We should check it out, just in case."

Aang yanked on the reigns and pulled Appa down towards the ground towards the strange, barren strip in the forest. Aang landed Appa a bit away from the strip, easing him down to the ground and being careful that he didn't crush any trees in the way, seeing as how the forest was rather thick. As soon as Appa was comfortable next to a small grassy patch of land near a shady tree, Aang and Toph jumped off of the bison and walked through the thick trees.

Along the way, Aang had stopped and noticed a few random branches littering the path that were burnt to a dark black. He saw Toph bend down and pick up one of the branches. As soon as she applied a little pressure to the branch as she held it between her fingers, it crumbled into pieces right into her hands. She then stood up and planted her feet firmly on the ground, trying to see if she could see into the distance with her Earth Bending. Aang looked down the path and wasn't able to see much past the thick trees that were blocking his line of vision. But from what he could see, there were even more burnt branches and bare bushes littering the sides of the path.

"Do you feel anything?" Aang asked her as he kept looking down the line of destruction.

Toph set her lips into a straight line. "I can't tell. We're too far away. There's not much I can see from over here. Maybe we should walk along the strip and see if we find anything." Aang nodded and continued on ahead, Toph following close behind him.

As they got closer, there was a slight heat hitting them in the face, as if there was a fire burning right ahead of them. As they walked for about ten more minutes, they reached the final layer of trees. Aang pushed himself through the thin space that the trees allowed and allowed Toph to squeeze by after him. After trudging through a wall of thick bushes, they let the scenery sink in.

There was nothing there. The grass beneath them was scorched black and you could still hear the burnt grass sizzling. The few trees that were still standing were gnarled and twisted at awkward angles and the bark that had previously covered the trees was either burnt black or was currently peeling off the sides of the trees. In the distance, Aang could still see a few trees that still had small fires sizzling on the ends of the branches, further supporting the fact that this must have been done very recently.

"This strip goes on for miles," Toph noted. "I can't feel any trees along this area."

Aang bent down and surveyed the damage in front of him. "I can't believe this. I thought everyone was past all of this."

Toph growled. "Stupid Fire Rebels. They're not going to quit are they?"

"Well, as long as Zuko is ruling, they are going to be a lot people loyal to Ozai who are going to have problems with the way the Fire Nation is being run," Aang said sadly.

Aang stood up and glanced over at Toph. "Can you feel anything from here now that we're away from all of the trees?"

"Yeah," she nodded. She pointed to the left down the burned forest. "There's a camp site a little bit ahead. I think they're some people there though. I'm not sure if they're Fire Nation or not, but it is highly probable."

"Well, we'd better make our way over there. It's a slight detour, but we can't have them causing any more problems." Aang stepped over the rest of the burned bushes and onto the scorched grass. As soon as he started walking, he heard a hiss of pain behind him. He turned around to find Toph holding on to her right foot and biting her bottom lip in pain.

"Are you okay," he asked in concern as he walked over to her.

"Yeah," she forced out. "It's just the ground is still really hot," she said, pointing to the burnt grass.

Aang looked down and noticed that Toph, as always, was barefoot while he still had on a pair of thick boots that he had picked up in the Fire Nation. At this rate, Toph would burn the skin off of her feet if she kept walking. He looked at the foot that she was grasping. As it was already, her foot was slightly red from the exposure to the heat of the ground. Aang sighed and looked back down towards where Toph said the camp was. It was probably a decent walk from where they were standing. Aang stared back at Toph for a moment.

_Well, she _is_ really light. I don't think it'll be much of a problem._

Aang bent over slightly in front of Toph. "Alright then. Grab on."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, you obviously can't walk without burning your feet along the way, so I'm going to have to carry on my back so you don't burn your feet. So grab on," he elaborated with a smile.

_Is he crazy? Have him carry me on his back?_

In all honesty, she wasn't too sure about being carried. She understood the help when she had burned her feet back in Air Temples when she was twelve. She couldn't walk at all. So she didn't mind the leverage. And besides, she was being carried between Aang and Sokka. It wasn't like she was riding on their backs where close body contact was practically mandatory. She also didn't like the fact that he was helping her across the field like she was totally helpless. Plus, she wouldn't be able to see at all since her feet couldn't very well touch the ground. But…

…she tapped her toe against the grass again and flinched on contact. It _was_ pretty hot…

"Um," she stuttered nervously. "O-Okay."

Reluctantly— and all the while trying to control the blood that was making its way towards her cheeks—she wrapped her arms around Aang's neck while she hopped onto his back. She tightened her grip slightly around his neck as she placed her thighs on either side of his body. She felt his arms go underneath her thighs so as to secure her on his back. She bit her lip in nervousness. Something that should've been seen as considerate and helpful was making her feel uncomfortable…

…yet she was strangely not too upset about the fact that he was holding her so close to him at the same time.

As Aang began walking down the barren field, he couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable himself. This was his best friend that he was carrying on his back. He panicked a little when he realized he had to hold on to her thighs in order for her not to fall off. And then to add on to the damage, Toph squeezing her thighs into his side wasn't making the long walk towards the camp any less distracting. In fact, all his focus was concentrated on that fact that Toph was this close to him. Just like he had thought before, she was very small and very light. He felt her chest rising up and down against his back and he flinched when her thighs had tightened around him even more.

_Come on, _he told himself._ Stop getting so distracted._

Shaking any and all unnecessary thoughts from his mind, he focused his bending and allowed himself to sense the vibrations around him. Seeing as how Toph was momentarily unable to look for him, Aang had to feel for himself. True to her word, he could feel a few tents and about twenty people ahead of him. They were situated off to the left from the burnt portion of the forest and it didn't feel as if they were moving around much. Perhaps they were resting and they wouldn't expect their arrival. In that case, it would be pretty easy to subdue all of them. He just hoped none of this would take too long.

"Do you see anything?" Toph asked after they had walked about half a mile.

Aang peered ahead of him. "I think so. They should be around here somewhere and I think I see some tents." Shrouded by a layer of trees, he could see the Fire Nation emblem on a few red tents. It was easy to distinguish the bright red as it contrasted strongly against the lush green of the forest that wasn't already burned down. They were probably on their way to the capital if Aang had to make a guess.

As soon as he found a clear spot of grass that wasn't charred or burned, he nudged Toph's legs with his arms. "You can come down now."

Toph swiftly let go of his neck and landed lightly on the soft grass underneath them. She huffed out a breath which caused her bangs to blow out of her eyes. "You don't know how annoying it is to not be able to see anything."

Aang ignored her. "Nobody's moving over there? What do you think is going on?"

Toph shrugged and put a finger to her lips as she started walking through the woods towards the tents. Aang followed close behind, quietly making their way around the camp site. Aang looked down at the ground to be sure that he didn't step on any stray twigs for fear of making any unnecessary noise while Toph's bare feet traveled noiselessly across the forest floor. Carefully, Toph pushed aside a large group of bushes that led straight into the clearing that the camp was set up in.

There was no one outside and the camp fire had long been extinguished. Bags, clothing, food, and packs were thrown carelessly about as if the owners of all of these things were in a hurry to make themselves sparse and hidden. In the distance, there was a group of Komodo Rhinos that were grazing in a grassy field, completely unaware of the two intruders that were noiselessly sneaking into enemy territory.

Toph tapped Aang on the shoulder and pointed her chin towards one of the tents. He understood the gesture and followed her towards the tents that were closest to them. Stepping over all of the stray items that were left sprawled all over the grass, they each stood on either side of the large tent; Toph on the right and Aang on the left.

They each grasped a small piece of the material covering the tents, prepared to pull them open. Aang looked up and saw Toph mouth 'On the count of three.'

'Three, two, one!'

They both yanked open the flaps covering the opening of the tent. Inside, they found exactly what they expected. There were a few Fire Rebels laid out on the floor of the tent and their snores could be easily heard from right outside the tent. Toph quickly counted four rebels inside the tent they were in. There were also four rebels in the other four tents that littered the camp site, making a grand total of twenty.

"They're all asleep," Aang whispered.

Toph clicked her tongue. "This doesn't make sense," she whispered back to him. "If the ground was still hot back there, that means they just burned that forest down today. And it's still pretty early. Why would they all be sleeping?"

Aang nodded, understanding her reasoning. "You're right. Something's not right here."

Just as she was about to turn around to further investigate the camp site, she widened her eyes in shock. "Look out!" She yelled.

Aang quickly turned around and narrowly missed a jet of fire that had passed by his head. He looked and saw another group of rebels, prepared to fight in offensive stances. There were only ten of them in front of him, but they had expertly snuck up behind them. Aang glanced up and saw five more rebels jump down from their perches in the surrounding trees. Aang backed up cautiously until he was standing back to back with Toph right behind him. Toph readied herself as she felt all five tents open up. The twenty fire rebels that they had thought were all asleep filed out of the tents, ready to attack.

The rebels closed in on the two teenage benders further, further lessening the time they had to react. "Great, what do we do now?" Toph hissed.

Aang scowled as he looked around him, noting that there was no hope of them making a run for it. "Well, there are thirty-five of them. You take the left half and I take the right half?" he hissed back.

Toph nodded. "Sounds good."

As soon as their agreement had been made, the front lines of benders had all let out simultaneous jets of fire towards the two other benders. Aang quickly spun his leg out, allowing a large gust of air to blow out all of the incoming fire. Toph brought her hands up and blocked the flames coming at her with a thick rock wall.

Aang lifted his arms again and sent out another powerful gust of air, knocking out the front line of rebels reeling into the trees behind them. Silently cursing at himself for leaving his staff back where Appa was, he jumped over the multiple blasts of fire that came his way again. Landing behind all of the rebels that were previously in front of him, Aang ran towards the group from behind. Circling his arms, he created two large spheres of air in each hand. He shot his hands forward and smirked in triumph as he saw many of the Fire Benders being blown back into the forest and out of sight. He heard the thuds, crashes, and groans of the other Fire Benders as they collided with the trees, bushes, and rocks that were plentiful around them. The small group remaining in front of him had quickly surrounded Aang again completely and shot continuous streams of fire towards Aang in all directions. Aang jumped up again as he narrowly missed another attack. Landing away from the remain Fire Benders, he noticed part of pants had been slightly singed from the series of attacks that he had just dodged. He stood up and faced his remaining opponents.

After she had let down her rock shield, Toph immediately caused the ground underneath the Fire Benders in front of her to shake, catching them all off balance and causing them to stumble all over themselves. She smirked at the opening they gave her and swiped her arm to the right. Another wall of earth came at a few of the benders at an angle and succeeded in knocking them unconscious and throwing them out of the way. Toph ran to the left and brought up another wall of earth to block more of the attacks that kept coming her way. Keeping her shield up, she stomped her foot on the ground, creating a fissure that traveled underneath seven benders and knocked them to the side. She brought down her shield and sent a large boulder towards the seven benders she had just knocked down, throwing them out of the clearing and towards the large trees of the forest. Facing the remaining rebels in front of her, she caused the ground underneath a large number of them to split, causing them to fall one by one into the large crevice she created in the ground. She closed the earth around them and trapped them from neck down. She stepped back as she observed the last few benders that were left in front of her.

The Fire Benders noticed that their small groups had decreased in number and quickly formed one large group directly in front of Toph and Aang. As they did this, the benders on each end of the group had sent blasts straight at the two other benders as the Fire Benders in the middle swept their arms across them and sent bright streams of fire coming at their enemies at full speed.

"Watch out!" Aang yelled. Aang quickly jumped up into the air to avoid the blasts while Toph propelled herself backwards with the help of a pillar of earth that she brought up from underneath her. She hit the floor with a thud as she felt an intense pain shoot up through her entire left leg. She held on to it as she felt the Fire Benders get closer. She stood up, ignoring the pain traveling up her leg as she faced the Benders again.

She lifted a large number of sharp rocks from the ground and shot them straight at the group of Fire Benders. Some rocks had pinned many of the rebels securely to the trees behind them while the rest brought their arms up to block as much as they could. Aang took this as the opportunity to send another strong wind towards the rebels and knocked them backwards onto their backs. Toph ran forward with Aang running next to her, both bringing up a few six-foot-tall boulders and quickly sending them flying towards the rebels that remained standing.

Soon, all thirty-five of the rebels were running towards the field where their Kimodo Rhinos were kept and were quickly climbing on top of them and making a quick retreat. The ones pinned to the tree left behind ripped pieces of fabric from their clothes in order to escape their confines while they mounted their animals and followed the rest as they ran away from the scene. Those who were too disoriented to notice where their comrades had gone simply ran in the opposite direction of the two powerful benders behind them, effectively clearing the entire campsite.

Aang laughed as he saw them retreat in the opposite direction of the capital. Toph felt all of them quickly clear the area and had let out a strangled laugh since she was still breathing heavily.

"Those guys were nothing," Toph commented as she stood up straight.

Aang shrugged his shoulders as he stretched out the kinks in his arms. "At least they're out of the way now. We can finally head back to Appa and hopefully get to the shoreline without much trouble."

Toph nodded. "You're right. We should probably get going before we waste any more time."

As soon as Toph tried to walk, she remembered about the hit she had taken to her left leg. As soon as she put weight on it, she felt her leg go slack underneath her as she fell on her knees towards the floor. She bit her lip and groaned in pain as she felt the sharp pain traveling up and down the nerves located in her leg.

"Toph, what happened?" Aang asked as he turned around and knelt down next to her.

She shook her head. "Nothing, I just got hit in the leg a little back there. It's no big deal."

"Can you walk?" Aang asked.

Toph slowly pushed herself up to a standing position, being careful not to put too much weight on her left leg. She took three shaky limps forward towards Aang to prove that she was fine. But then she felt her leg give out again and this time tumbled straight into Aang's arms. He latched onto her arms and caught her before she tumbled back down to the ground again.

Toph sat back down on the grass. She bent her right knee and used it to prop up her right arm as she left her injured leg to spread out in front of her. Aang knelt down next to her and took a look at her left leg. He quickly saw that there was a blood stain about the size of his hand on the material of her pants. He held onto the hem of her pants and looked up at Toph's face. She nodded in assurance before he slowly rolled the fabric up to reveal the bottom part of her leg.

Stretching from her knee all the way to her ankle was a large burn. Blood was trickling down her leg and was dripping on the grass underneath her. She heard Aang sigh as he assessed the damage.

"I'm going to go ahead and say no. I don't think I can walk."

* * *

**Please, review. And I hope you enjoyed!**


	6. Chapter 5

**A/N: Let's see. This is my last week of school. Then this Saturday I have my Biology SAT II to suffer through (my Princeton Review book is sitting right next to me with highlighting marks up to the wazoo) and then it'll be SUMMER! I swear to TophGod that I am going to finish all of my stories this summer. They will be completed. **

**On another note, the first chapter to my AU story is written. Will I post it? Or will I wait? I don't know to be honest. **

**Thank you so much to Pyrozia for grammar and wonderful input. **

* * *

**It's More Than Enough**

* * *

_**Chapter 5**_

* * *

Toph heard Aang curse under his breath as he sat down in front of her, picking up her damaged leg and stretching it out straight in front of him. She was able to hear the clearly audible drips of blood as they started falling, one by one, onto the ground beneath her. The extent of the damage covered her whole leg; the pain that was still shooting up and down her leg was a clear indication of that. She let out a frustrated sigh.

_Leave it to me to be the one that got hurt. Now what am I supposed to do?_

Aang clicked his tongue against his teeth in thought. "It looks pretty bad."

Toph sighed and rolled her eyes. "How bad?" she muttered, hanging her head so that her bangs hung loosely in front of her downcast face.

Aang nodded. "Pretty bad. You've got a burn running up your entire leg and it's bleeding like crazy. The fact that you can't walk just means that it's even worse than I thought," he said, his eyes still scanning her leg.

It was true. Moving the leg just put more stress on the burn. Imagine if she tried to walk out of here with that thing bleeding and hurting as much as it was? She wouldn't be able to walk three feet without someone helping her. Which meant that Aang was going to have to carry her back to….

….wait. _Carry!_

"Um, look I just tripped a little bit when I stood up," Toph rushed out. "I mean it really is fine. You don't have to do anything to it. It doesn't even hurt." Total lie. But he didn't need to know that.

Aang lifted a brow. "What are you talking about?"

"I mean that my leg is fine. You don't have to worry about it. We'll just walk back the way we came back towards Appa. I'll be fine, I promise." She bit her lip as she looked over at him, wishing that she could be able to gauge whether or not he was even going to buy this. But she couldn't be carried back. She couldn't let that happen.

It was bad enough she was blushing like crazy when he carried her across all of that burned terrace, but for him to carry her all the way back to Appa? She'd just about faint. She wouldn't be able to do it. She couldn't do it. It would just make her seem way too obvious and out in the open. So better for her to avoid any physical contact with him.

Well, not _all_ physical contact. But anything that was too intimate. Carrying definitely fell under that category.

Aang crossed his arms and had an amused smile on his face. "You think you can walk back by yourself when you just said you couldn't walk?"

"I know I can!" Toph scolded, completely missing that look of disbelief and amusement on Aang's face. "I was just exaggerating. It's feeling so much better now. Here I'll show you."

Toph placed her hands next to her and pushed herself off the ground. Trying not to show the pain that was threatening to overwhelm her, she shakily stood up using her good leg as much as possible until she was standing on both feet, leaning towards the side that wasn't causing her excessive pain. She bit her lip slightly as she took a step forward. All was good until she had to lean on her burned leg.

Her leg gave out. She tumbled to the ground and hit it with a hard thud.

"Toph!"

She grumbled under her breath. "I'm fine, I'm fine." She pushed her upper body off of the ground and maneuvered herself until she was sitting on her good leg with her burned leg stretched out on front of her. She was sure that with that extra exertion, it was probably bleeding even more. Toph cursed under her breath when she felt her leg pulsate with pain.

Aang rolled his eyes. "I told you walking wouldn't work. Besides, that strip is still really hot. I would've had to carry you anyway."

_Damn. He has a point._

Toph huffed and allowed her bangs to fly up and fall gracefully against her face. "Fine. So I can't walk. But I could just wait here for you while you go and get Appa. It will certainly be a lot faster and save us a load of trouble."

Aang raised a brow. "Explain to me how leaving an injured, blind, girl alone in the middle of the woods where there were recently rebels is a good idea. Do you want to get abducted?"

Toph rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to get attacked."

"Maybe not in the way you think. But _I'm_ just imagining what kind of pervert could come in here and have his way with you." She could just picture him crossing his arms with that stubborn look of his. He sure as heck was making this difficult.

"I'm not some weak little girl that's going to just lay on her back while she gets violated. You do know that I would pummel that guy into the ground if he tried anything with me, right?"

Aang nodded. "Of course I know that. But that's speaking in terms of normal circumstances." He bent down at tapped her knee, smirking. "But as far as I can tell, you have a bum leg at the moment."

Crap.

He was right.

And what was worse, he knew she knew he was right.

_How the heck can I talk myself out of this now?_

_You can't_, she told herself.

She scowled when she heard Aang chuckle in front of her. "Got any more ideas? Because frankly, we could've been well on our way by now."

"Do you like being a smart aleck?" she snarled. "I'm starting to regret the fact that I'm rubbing off on you."

Aang laughed. "Well, what do you expect? I learn from the best. Besides, it's only fair considering the amount of mental torture you put me through when we were twelve."

"Come on. You make it sound like I ripped apart your self esteem until you were crying in the corner. I wasn't cruel to you or anything."

Aang nodded. "That may be true. But your smart comments are exhausting to keep up with. You tire people out with your sarcasm at the end of the day."

"Glad to know I'm doing my job right," Toph smiled.

Aang shook his head. "Whatever Toph." A ripping sound suddenly tore through the campsite and reached her ears at a strangely loud volume. It seemed that the forest was quiet other than their talking. She heard the ripping sound stop as she felt Aang sit down in front of leg, hunched over the wound.

"Try not to move alright?"

"Um…sure?"

The next thing she felt was a sharp pain shooting through her leg as she felt pressure applied to the area around the burn. It was a rubbing sensation that was pressing against the entirety of her leg as delicately as it could. Despite its attempts, it still sent jolts up her spine, causing her to bite her lip.

"Mph…what are you doing?"

"Cleaning your leg. I can't have you bleeding all over me."

She heard more ripping sounds and felt more fabric press against her leg as the blood was quickly dried up. The dripping sounds had stopped and her leg didn't feel as caked up with sticky, metallic smelling liquid as it did before. The air hit her newly cleaned wound sharply, allowing for some alleviation. As soon as she had felt the air hit her exposed wound, she heard a bit of shuffling and then more fabric on her leg, this time slowly wrapping itself around her leg over and over again.

He started at her ankle and slowly made his way around her leg until the fabric reached her knee, covering the burn as best he could. Toph felt him circle around the top of her knee one more time before her grabbed the two ends of the cloth he was wrapping her leg with and tied it off with a sturdy knot. He stepped away and lightly tapped her knee to signal that he was done. Toph moved her leg from side to side, bent it at the knee, and flexed her muscles under the fabric.

She could still feel the throbbing underneath all the fabric, but at least it wasn't bleeding and the added pressure of the bandage was helping with the pain. She slowly ran her fingers up and down the leg and made sure that no area was left uncovered. Nodding at his good work she lifted her head and thanked him.

Aang smiled and bent down in front of her. Toph didn't react until she felt his arm warp underneath her knees as well as his other arm reaching around the middle of her back. She yelped and scooted away from him as fast as her burned leg would allow her. She shook her head in confusion and sent an angry glare towards him.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Aang averted his gaze for two seconds before meeting her burning gaze. "Um…I was getting ready to carry you?"

"We didn't agree on that."

"Of course we did. You couldn't come up with a better solution so it was implied that I was going to carry you."

"I don't want to be carried."

"Then come up with a better idea."

Toph sat in silence, a murderous expression twisting her face.

"Exactly. Now stop acting like a little baby and just come on. It's going to get dark in a few hours and we still need to make it to the coast line."

"Don't order me around like I'm a little kid, Twinkle Toes! I may be injured but I'm not an idiot."

"Will you stop twisting my words? I didn't call you an idiot."

"But you're treating me like one."

"No, I'm not."

"Yeah, you are."

Aang growled under his breath. He reached around to the back of his neck and started rubbing it. "Look, can we argue later? Call me paranoid, but I don't want that leg of yours to get any worse. The longer it goes without medicine, the longer it's going to take to heal."

Toph sucked her teeth and hung her head. "Fine."

Again, Aang reached one arm underneath Toph's knees and another around the middle of her back. Even though she still had an extremely annoyed pout on her face, she allowed him to hoist her up in his arms and secure her as close to his own body as possible. He fixed her leg so that it was dangling over his arms and wasn't rubbing up against anything that would cause her any discomfort. As soon as he was sure that she wasn't in any pain and that he wasn't going to drop her, he started making his way back through the bushes and towards the burned strip of the forest.

"Geez, you're really light. You need to start eating more," he joked.

"Shut up."

As soon as Aang started walking, Toph figured that while she was in such a compromising situation—even though she was sure Aang wasn't looking at this the way _she_ was. To her it was contact that was deemed far too close for someone that was supposed to be considered your _secret _crush, but of course Aang didn't know that last little tidbit so this didn't really apply to him—she might as well get a little bit more comfortable. She carefully leaned into his chest so as to rest her head a little but for the long walk back.

No, she wasn't trying to cuddle up to him. She was tired and was just trying to rest her head. That was _it_. She wasn't trying to steal warmth from him or get closer to him just so that he would hold her tighter.

Even though secretly in her dreams she really, _really_ wanted that to happen, she had to hide her feelings in public and keep up her tomboy façade. Letting anyone onto the mushy, gushy, pretty-little-girl feelings that were running rampant in her head at the moment would prove to be catastrophic. After all, Aang was so broken over Katara not even a few days ago. All he needed to know was that Toph was enamored with him. Then their friendship would be messed up, they would become awkward, and then they definitely would lose any or all previous companionship that they had gained over the last few years…friendship as well as romantic.

Nope. She couldn't let that happen. So she tried to keep her girly hormones in control.

Key word: _tried_.

Because, it only took Toph a mere two seconds to realize that what she thought was Aang's clothed chest wasn't actually his clothed chest.

She was pretty sure that her cheek was leaning up against something smooth and sweaty. Despite the perspiration, it smelt amazing and there were some subtle indents and dips in the surface. It wasn't his shirt, but at least it was comfortable.

Wait a minute. It wasn't his shirt. That meant…

_Oh, kill me._

Aang's chest was bare. Aang's muscular, sweaty, amazing-smelling body was pressing up against her cheek.

Let the blushing begin.

"Um…A-Aang?" she asked carefully, far too nervous to even remember to call him by his nickname. "W-Where's your s-shirt?"

"Hm? Oh, right," he laughed lightly. "I didn't have anything to wrap your leg up in. All the bandages were left on Appa so I had to improvise. I couldn't let you bleed on me, like I said."

"So you used your _shirt!_" she asked mortified.

"Well, I couldn't very well use my pants, now could I?"

Now, she knew that he didn't mean anything suggestive with that statement, but the thought of Aang carrying her back to Appa without his pants on…

…oh spirits, what did she do to deserve this!

"Um…well I…I guess not. You're right. Sorry."

Toph missed the questioning gaze that Aang sent her way, but he quickly averted his eyes and focused on carrying his best friend back to the campsite.

The remainder of the walk consisted of Toph being very careful to ignore that fact that she was leaning against Aang's completely bare pectorals. Honestly, when in the world did a scrawny twelve-year-old boy have the time to develop such muscles over the span of a couple of years? Granted they weren't gigantic, but they were definitely there. Not to mention terribly distracting. At least for her. Perhaps it was the added labor of moving around all of the rubble, stones, statues, and other things of the sort while they were cleaning up the temple. Not to mention that as he got older, Aang started training a lot more vigorously than before. He now had the time to experiment with his bending rather than learning all of the moves that he could in a set period of time. That left him alone in the courtyard of the temples for hours, experimenting with whatever he could.

She was proud to say that most of the time he practiced his Earth Bending. Though she still wasn't sure why. She figured that he'd play around with Fire Bending since he had so little time to learn it. But, it seemed that he preferred Earth Bending.

She supposed that left him plenty of time to bulk up. Sadly, it just gave her more of a hard time. She had to fully ignore that fact that she was being carried, her face was pressed against his bare chest, and they were unintentionally playing the damsel-in-distress game.

Guess who was the damsel-in-distress?

Toph shook her head. She had to stop thinking about this so much. All she had to do was stay calm and keep her head cleared of anything that had to do with Aang.

_Calm down, I can do this…_

_…_

…

…_okay I can't do this._

* * *

When Appa's grunts were finally within a few feet of her hearing, Toph smiled and silently thanked any Gods that were still on her side. It had been an extremely long walk from the rebel's camp site back to Appa. Maybe it wasn't for Aang, but for her, it may as well have been four miles. Well, at least now he would put her down, and maybe her cheeks weren't permanently stained red from all of the blood that wouldn't leave her face for the entirety of their walk.

Aang whistled sharply, signaling for Appa to walk closer to him. She felt wind hitting her face and blowing her bangs at an odd angle. He must have Air Bended himself somewhere. Sure enough, she was placed gently on top a familiar surface; Appa's saddle.

Toph stretched her leg out again in front of her as she pulled herself against the back of the saddle so that she'd have somewhere she could lean. She let out a breath as she was finally able to relax for the first time since this afternoon. Though she had to admit, even though she was nervous as hell the entire way, it was kind of nice that he was carrying her. But, it was a lot easier on her nerves to sit back against something that wasn't a well chiseled chest, and just let the breeze hit her face again.

She heard more shuffling across from her as well as Aang mumbling a few things to himself. She heard him place a few things against the saddle as he rummaged through more of the packs that he had placed on Appa. A few bottles of medicine were laid out as well as some cleaned bandages, water, and a few rags that he would clean her leg with. Toph wiggled her toes as she waited for Aang to crawl over to her and lean over her leg again like he did back at the Fire Rebel campsite.

Aang reached up again and untied the knot that he had secured his make-shift bandage with. With the gentleness and tenderness that only an Air Bender like Aang was capable of, he carefully took of the bandage so that he wouldn't rub up against the burn and cause Toph pain. He placed his ripped, blood-soaked tunic to the side as he lifted her leg one more time, and placed her foot on his knee so that he could have some leverage.

He water bended a stream of water out of the pouch that he packed and brought up to her leg. He had told her a while ago that Katara had attempted to teach him how to heal using water bending. Apparently it had been a failed attempt. But, Katara had insisted that it was probably a woman thing and that he shouldn't get so choked up about it. So instead of a blue glow coming from his hands, he simply sloshed the water around the wound, getting rid of all of the dried and new blood that accumulated on her wound. Toph sighed at the sensation the water brought, glad that she was allowed a little bit of relief.

As soon as the water disappeared, Aang took out a rag and dried her leg carefully. He started to pour a liquid on her leg that stung on contact. That was probably the medicine. As soon as the stinging stopped, she felt Aang wrap bandages around her leg again. This time they felt different from the ripped cotton strips that used to be Aang's shirt. Similar to before, he wrapped up her leg all the way to the top of her knee before he knotted the bandage up securely. He patted her knee as he set it down next to him, signaling that he finished again.

"Thanks," Toph mumbled, moving her leg around again, gauging how much she was able to move it. She could still bend it and move it around, put putting pressure on it would prove to be problematic.

She heard Aang sigh as he flopped back down on the saddle on his back. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I should've had your back. Then you wouldn't be hurt like you are now."

"Don't be stupid," she waved him off. "It was my fault that I got hurt and there's nothing that you can do about it. We'll just wait until it heals," she stated simply.

Aang shook his head and flipped over on his side so that he was leaning on his elbow. "Still, I didn't mean for you to get hurt. I should've done something."

Toph scowled. "Stop guilt-tripping yourself. There was nothing you could do. Besides, you're making sound like I lost my leg. I just got a little burn. I'm fine."

"If you were fine you would've been able to walk back by yourself."

Toph scowled and smacked him on the top of his head. Aang quickly flinched and reached for his head, throbbing in pain. "What was that for?"

"For acting like such a scapegoat. Geez, I already told you that I'm fine. You need to stop blaming yourself for everything. It's a little irritating."

Aang stared down at the saddle next to him. "Sorry. I just got worried when I saw you bleeding so much."

Toph frowned slightly before responding. "Don't worry so much. It takes a lot to bring me down," she smirked.

"I know that. But it still doesn't keep me from freaking out about you when I see you hurt. Forgive me for worrying," he said, bringing his hands up in defense.

"No, no. I guess I understand. Thanks for worrying yourself sick over me," she smiled.

Aang shrugged. "You're welcome. Anything to carry you back to Appa."

"What?"

"Let's face it. You were totally peeved off when I told you I had to carry you. It was kind of nice to see you acting like a girl and letting me carry you back instead of you trying to man up and walk back by yourself. Even if you didn't like it."

Toph averted her gaze and stared down at her leg. She started picking at her nails as casually as she could while she answered. "Well, it wasn't _horrible_. I guess I'm just not used to it. I like taking care of myself _by_ myself, you know." She sighed and laid down on her back again. "Is it dark out yet?"

Aang looked up at the sky above him. "Not really. I mean, I think the sun is going to start going down any minute. If we leave right now, we could definitely make it to the shoreline by the time it gets dark. Then we can finally sleep and start up again tomorrow."

"Ugh!" Toph groaned, rolling over on her stomach and burying her face into the saddle. "That means a whole day of water travel," she complained, her voice coming and muffled.

"Come on, you've done it before."

"Doesn't mean I liked it."

Aang smiled as he shook his head. "Fine. I'll try to keep you occupied on the way."

Toph scoffed. "How?"

Aang shrugged. "I don't know. I could bring up the fact that you were totally blushing while I was carrying you," he smirked, stepping away from the saddle and making his way towards Appa's reigns.

He left Toph gaping in her position on the saddle, her angry eyes turning in the general direction of Appa's head. "I was _not_ blushing." Again, total lie.

Aang let out a loud laugh. "Please, Toph. Your cheeks were the deepest red I've ever seen. You were blushing."

Toph scowled as she sat up and quickly crawled over to Aang. She slammed her hands down on the edge of the saddle near his head, causing him to snap his head around.

"How do I know _you _weren't blushing either?"

She smirked in triumph as he heard him at a loss for words, desperately trying to come up with something to say. He was stuttering, gaping, and making a fool of himself, which made Toph feel a little better about herself. "I rest my case."

"Hold on a minute," Aang argued, turning around to face her. "I never said I was blushing. You just _assumed_."

"Oh, right. I just _assumed_ that you were totally at a loss for words and couldn't even get out a coherent word to answer me back." Toph smirked as she folded her arms over her chest. "You. Were. _Blushing_."

"Y-You just caught me by surprise," he insisted, stuttering over the words.

Toph shook her head. "Blusher."

"You seem to be forgetting that you were blushing too."

Toph froze. She looked down and was glad that she couldn't see that smug little grin that was spreading across her best friend's face. But she quickly rolled her eyes and leaned back over the saddle so that her heard was next to his head. "Okay, fine. So we were both blushing. What of it?"

"You were nervous."

"You're darn right I was nervous," she spat back. "I didn't want you to drop me."

"Please, you were light as a feather," he argued back. "I wasn't going to drop you. And you know that wasn't why you were blushing."

"How do you know what I know?" she snarled. "I could've had a fever for all you knew."

"But you didn't. You just admitted that you were blushing."

Toph growled and grabbed at the long locks of hair that were still restricted in her large bun at the back of her head. "Can we just stop this? Look, you caught me at an awkward moment. That was _it_."

"I'm pretty sure I can make you blush again if I wanted to," he challenged.

Toph rolled her eyes and turned back around so that her back was facing Aang. She brought her knees up and turned her nose to the sky. "I'm not talking to you."

"What? I'm just saying. How much do you want to bet that I can make you blush right now?"

Toph turned her head and sent a full glare in his direction. "I'm not betting anything against you because I know for a fact that you can't—"

Her next statement was lost on her tongue the moment she felt Aang's lips against her cheek.

It was a quick tap that probably only lasted about two seconds, but the fact that Aang pressed his actual lips against her cheek was enough to have her face heating up again, no matter how much she didn't want it to. She snapped her hand up and placed her fingers lightly on the spot that he just kissed. She turned her whole body around as he crawled back to the reigns, chuckling to himself. Then he lifted Appa into the sky and they were flying towards the shore line again.

"Don't worry," Aang called back to her. "You can pay me later."

Toph felt a vein pop out of her forehead. She stood up on her good leg and leaned her head over to his direction as far as she could without falling, pouting angrily the entire time. "You are impossible!"

Aang smiled softly and turned his head back towards her, keeping his hands on the reigns. "First of all, standing after the bison is in motion is dangerous."

Toph rolled her eyes as she sat down on the saddle and leaned her elbow on the edge of the saddle, propping her chin up with her hand. The left side of her profile was facing Aang as she angrily stared out into nothing while he kept flying. She was about to turn her head and make another snippy comment at him just to vent out her frustration when Aang turned around and surprised her again.

"You shouldn't get too mad. You look nice when you're blushing," he said quietly.

Well…she didn't expect him to say that.

Toph turned her head a little to the right so that he couldn't see her reaction if he had decided to look back. "Um, uh, thanks, I guess," she mumbled, just loud enough for him to hear.

Aang chuckled softly as he turned his direction back to the sky in front of him. "You're welcome. And before you say anything, yes. I mean it."

The rest of the ride to the shoreline was silent. Toph didn't want to mess up the unexpected, but altogether very sweet moment that had just passed. It wouldn't seem right if she just cracked a smart comment towards him or started making fun of him just to return to something a little bit more familiar. It wouldn't seem right. Besides, she couldn't deny that what he said was really very nice. She wasn't entirely sure if the kiss was just a way to prove something to her, but by the way he was speaking so nicely to her, he sounded honest.

Toph smiled as she turned back around and leaned her back against the saddle to hopefully get a little bit of sleep. That proved to be unsuccessful for the first half hour seeing as how Aang was only a few feet away and he had just kissed her.

Well, half-kissed her. But still.

She managed to pull herself into a half-sleep state, while still aware of the wind getting colder and still aware of the warmth that was disappearing from her skin. The sun felt like it was finally going down and if she concentrated enough, she could smell the ocean a bit in the distance. She would've woken up to go bother Aang and ask him how far away they were, but she didn't feel like moving. All of the blood on her body was rushing to her injured leg, so to say that she was really tired was an understatement. All she really wanted was to curl up and keep sleeping.

She wasn't sure when it was that they stopped, but pretty soon the wind stopped blowing her hair around and the wind got a lot more quiet. But she still didn't make an effort to get up. It was probably because she was still half asleep and she really couldn't move even if she tried.

Aang was loosening the reigns on Appa. She heard the metal buckles clank against each other as he pulled them as loose as they would go. She heard him let out a small chuckle before he stepped next to her and pulled out one of the packs that he had placed on the saddle. He jumped down to the ground and she heard more shuffling and brushing on the ground below her. After a while, she heard a crackling nose along with the smell of burning wood.

_He probably started a fire_, she thought in her half-conscious state.

Before she could curl up finally and maybe fall asleep for real, he felt Aang gently lift her up from the saddle and carry her for the third time that day. He made sure not to move her so much so that she wouldn't wake up from her slumber. Toph then felt herself placed on a soft bed of blankets which she immediately curled up into. She was used to simply sleeping on the ground whenever they camped out, but she supposed that Aang wasn't about to just dump her on the ground while he was asleep.

She felt the warmth of the fire fight against the cold breezes of the ocean that were causing goose bumps to rise on her skin. Soon, she melted into the warmth and found herself a comfortable position among the soft blankets underneath her. Then, another warm sheet covered her from her toes to her shoulders, until she was nice, warm, and covered. Toph sighed, glad that she was now laying down instead of propped up against the hard saddle.

A slight thud against the ground and a happy grunt from Appa signaled to her that Aang had removed the saddle as was just about to let him and his bison fall asleep as well. Toph shifted one more time and tried to focus on actually falling asleep completely instead of staying half aware of what was going on. Soon, her mind started to get hazy as sleep started to find its way towards her.

She heard Aang walk over to her again and kneel down next to her. She was far too tired to get nervous, so she just waited to see what would happen when he thought she was asleep. She felt him gently pat her head in an affectionate manner as he sighed in deeply and let out huge breath. She felt his hand hesitate to leave, but once it did she immediately felt him press his lips against the top of her head. He pulled away and stood up from his kneeled-down position and muttered one thing before he turned in for the night himself.

"Good night, Toph."

Toph smiled slightly before she fell completely asleep.

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**I dunno. I liked it, but then again I'm biased. Oh, and sorry for the lack of page breaks in the last chapter. I don't know what happened. I guess I'll just stick to old fashioned ones that FF provides for our disposal. **

_**Review Prompt: Tell me your favorite line in the story. **_

**Thanks for reading. And there's a prompt up there for a reason. REVIEW!**


	7. Chapter 6

**A/N: **_*sits in the Box of Shame* *places a Dunce Cap on her head* I can't believe I forgot about this story. I was so wrapped up in my other one that I've been a terrible owner to this one. Ugh. I feel ashamed. *cries in humiliation*_

_And don't worry. I still remembered my promise: this will be finished soon. Hopefully before I start school, but I may have to give up a few weekends once I start getting homework again. But rest assured I've gotten a sudden surge of motivation. I'm in a writing frenzy. Let's hope it lasts. _

* * *

**It's More Than Enough**

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_**Chapter 6**_

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The first thing that Toph noticed in the morning was that she was abnormally warm.

Normally during her travels with her friends, she was perfectly fine with just her rock tent and the breeze around her. Sokka and Katara were really the only ones that slept in sleeping bags along with quilts and sheets. She supposed Aang preferred Appa to the ground. She understood that. After all, Appa was really fuzzy. He probably made a warm, comfy bed. But she was probably the only one that slept on the cold, hard ground without any covers. Not that she minded. It was just a fact.

But she didn't remember putting up a rock tent last night. In fact, she didn't even _remember_ getting off of Appa last night. Yet she magically appeared here…wait, where _was_ here?

She was on the ground. That much was completely obvious. She could feel the forest around her as well as the strange heartbeat not too far away that probably belonged to Appa, who was actually wide awake and sounded eager to get going. She felt a pile of wood and branches next to her, which probably meant that Aang started a fire last night. As she brought her hand a little closer, she felt the heat from the embers that were probably still glowing. She sort of recalled Aang placing in front of the fire last night, but that definitely wasn't why she was so warm.

She sat up and rolled her head around, loosening the muscles in her neck. Right away, she felt her leg still throbbing under the bandages Aang had placed there yesterday. Granted, it didn't hurt as much anymore, but she still felt the blood rushing to her leg in a hurry to try and repair the damage inflicted. She raised her arms in order to crack the kinks out of her shoulders when she felt something fall of her shoulders and flutter to the ground. She reached and noticed the blankets that must have been covering her and keeping her warm the entire time.

She smiled quickly. Aang probably covered her last night.

_And for good reasons_, she commented right away. She remembered that they were supposed to land along the coastline yesterday and then make their way across to the Earth Kingdom—which meant a whole day of flying over water. _Joy_, she muttered to herself. But the breeze from the sea was really rather cold, despite the fact that it was supposed to be quite hot outside like it had been for the past few days. She actually felt goose bumps rise on her arms which were exposed to the cold.

She hopped up on her feet, being careful with her leg which was still hurting a bit. Thanks to the medicine that Aang had with him, she could probably limp now. But knowing him, Aang would probably make her keep her weight off of it for a while. She supposed he was right. But it was moments like these that she kind of wished Sugar Queen was around. Only being able to Earth Bend with one leg was going to be torturous.

Toph rubbed her hands roughly down her arms. This was insane. It was boiling yesterday, yet today it felt as if the temperature dropped by double. She didn't plan for cold weather, so her short sleeved shirt did absolutely nothing in terms of warming her up. She grumbled loudly and grabbed the blanket that was covering her this morning and wrapped it around herself twice. At least Aang was smart enough to bring warm blankets. But honestly, who planned for fall weather in the middle of the summer?

"I see you're awake."

_Ugh_, Toph chastised herself. It seemed like every time he spoke to her, her heart would start hammering. How was she supposed to remain calm around him when her body kept betraying her like this?

Toph nodded reluctantly and hugged the blanket around her tighter. "I guess. Though if sleeping means being unaware of this bipolar weather, I'm kind of regretting the fact that I'm awake."

Aang shrugged and pulled his long-sleeved robes closer to him. "Yeah. I guess there's a cold front sweeping through. It happens. It'll probably be scorching tomorrow like always."

"How did you know to bring blankets?"

Aang walked over to Appa and started fitting his saddle back on. "I didn't. I just keep that stuff back on Appa just in case. You never know what you need, you know?"

Toph heard Appa grunt as Aang secured the saddle and started fitting on the reins. "How's your leg?" he called loudly.

Toph kicked her foot and bent a pile of rocks on top of the embers, putting out the fire until there was only smoke rising up. "It's okay, I guess. I can put weight on it at least, but I'm probably going to be limping for the next couple of days. The Water Bending you did might have actually healed it a lot."

"As long as you're okay," he called back. Then she heard him snort softly. "Although, it is a little bit of a shame; I would've loved to carry you onto Appa," he teased, smirking.

"Oh, shut up!" she shouted back. "You're never going to let me live this down are you?"

He laughed. "Nope, not at all."

Toph simply scowled at him and turned away.

"We're going to have to get you more bandages when we land, you know," he shouted over to her. "Those aren't going to last you long," he told her, referring to the bandages that were still covering her leg from yesterday.

"I'm sure it's fine," she assured.

But he simply shook his head and called back to her again. "Nope. You're supposed to change them every day. But I don't have any more clothes that I can afford to rip up and I'm out of actual bandages. So when we land, I'll wrap you up again."

Toph felt a gust of wind as Aang landed in front of her without making a single sound. He looked around quickly to make sure that they didn't forget anything, muttering his checklist of items to himself as reassurance. Toph dragged herself over to Appa, moving as much as she possibly could in the process so that she could shake off the cold.

"Are you really that cold?" Aang asked. He sounded more concerned than anything else.

Toph nodded her head furiously. "I like it better when it's warm outside. Cold weather is absolutely diabolical."

Aang shrugged and placed a hand on her shoulder. He leaned his head in closer and whispered into your ear. "Are you sure you don't want another hug? You might warm up." He laughed to himself as he walked back over to Appa, leaving Toph to glare dangerously at him from a distance.

Toph rolled her eyes in annoyance. "You know, you're going to regret making fun of me when I find something to make fun of _you_ with."

"Try all you want," Aang shrugged, settling himself on Appa's head with the reins in his hands.

Toph responded with a scowl as she Earth Bended a pillar of Earth and walked on to Appa's saddle, minding her burnt leg the entire time. "Oh I will try. I'm a natural born con artist. I'll get something."

"So what, are you planning blackmail me now?"

Toph shook her head and looked offended. "_No!_ I would never do that to a friend," she smiled cunningly.

Aang stared at her strangely before throwing his arms up into the air in frustration. "I don't win with you. Ever."

"And you're not going to," she added happily.

"Then again," Aang said slowly. "I did win when I said I could make your face turn colors."

"Shut. _Up_."

"Look, until you find something on me—which you won't—I'll tease you all I want," Aang chuckled.

Toph pouted angrily. _He's getting too freaking bold. It isn't fair._

"We'll just wait. I'll get my dirt. Don't you worry."

"Whatever you say Toph," he said in a sing-song voice.

He signaled Appa and Toph immediately felt the air start to blow around her face as they took off into the air. Mentally preparing herself for the terribly long and unfortunately _continuous _journey in store for her, she spread out her legs, and lay spread eagle on the saddle. Aang lifted Appa of off the ground and towards the ocean. Toph wrapped the blanket closer to her as the wind chill made the temperature drop rapidly. It probably wouldn't have been a big deal to people like Katara or Sokka who were bred to live in freezing temperatures, but being born in the Earth Kingdom, she absolutely _hated_ cold weather of any kind. Thus explained her seemingly ridiculous but highly necessary fashion statement that consisted of a blanket wrapped as tight as a cocoon around her body.

It didn't take long for Appa to fly level and get a feel for the direction he was going in. The wind started to die down and it was soon nothing more than an occasional breeze. Thankfully, although it was still rather cold, the wind wouldn't be adding to the frigid temperatures anymore. She was able to hear the crashing waves below her and even heard some birds flying not too far away from Appa himself. Aang muttered something to Appa before he let go of the reins and sat himself across from Toph, who was still wrapped tightly in her blanket.

"You're not going to steer Appa?" she asked.

Aang shook his head and leaned his back against the edge of the saddle. "Nah, he knows where he's going. As soon as we hit land we're going to get off anyway."

"Do you know where we're going?" Toph questioned.

"Of course I do," he answered. "There's a town that I've been to before that's near the edge of the Earth Kingdom. We'll be able to stay there for the night and hopefully get a nice comfortable bed until we have to leave the next morning. It's a bit north, but all we have to do is travel East for a little bit and we'll hit Ba Sing Se. We'll probably get to Kuei late tomorrow afternoon."

Toph smirked. "Impressive itinerary; But when are we going to eat? I don't want to be stuck up here for an entire day with nothing to eat. I'll die."

Aang shook his head and sighed. "First of all, we're not going to be stuck up here all day like you think. We'll reach the Earth Kingdom village in a few hours. Then we can stay there for the night and slink over to Ba Sing Se. Second of all, you're not going to die. I snitched some food from the kitchens in the Fire Palace before we left."

Aang moved around Toph and dug into the packs that he had placed in the back of the saddle. Toph blew into her hands while she heard Aang rummaging through bags and bags of who-knew-what that he took the trouble of lugging on to the saddle. Almost immediately, he popped his head out of the packs and came out with his arms filled with food.

Toph unwrapped her blanket enough to allow her arms to poke out. Aang grabbed her hands and pressed a bundle of something wrapped in a napkin in one hand along with a smaller, drawstring bag that seemed to be letting off a lot of heat. She heard a thump in front of her as Aang jumped in front of her with his own to bags of food, and started to undo the knot on the first bundle he gave her.

"What did you grab?" she asked, pulling at the cloth.

"The bigger one is just some vegetable dumplings. The cooks had made one batch too many, so they gave me the extras for me to eat. So I split them with you."

"What's this then?" Toph asked, holding up the drawstring bag in her other hand.

"Fire Flakes," he said happily. "You might want to wait until they cool off though. Sokka always said they're really hot if you eat them right away."

"Cool," Toph nodded. "Though I have to say, I don't really understand Fire Nation cuisine." She bit thoughtfully into a boiled dumpling and breathed a sigh of relief as food started to collect in her stomach.

"Why?" Aang said, his mouth probably filled with food.

"They use too many spices," she explained. "I mean, all of their dishes are spicy, all of them. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind the spiciness too much. I can handle it. But there's such a thing as moderation." She shook her head, taking another bite of her dumpling. "They probably burned off all of their taste buds, That's why the spiciness doesn't bother them."

"Well, the dumplings taste fine," Aang commented, stuffing more boiled dough and vegetables in his mouth.

"That's probably because there's no meat in them," Toph explained, taking extremely smaller bites than Aang was. "I heard they season entire Komodo Chickens with a whole barrel of spices."

"I don't doubt that," Aang shuddered suddenly. "I mean,they probably have to douse it in spices just so people will eat it. I heard that it's a pain to eat."

"It is," Toph grumbled. "It's so hard to chew that it's not even worth it. Yet all these nobles put them on their fine cuisine menus. I swear, sometimes I'm glad I grew up in the Earth Kingdom."

Aang nodded and sighed. "Yeah. I have to admit, that feast they made for us at your parent's house was _pretty tasty_," Aang complimented, drawling out the last two words to emphasize his point. His eyes started to sparkle and his voice sounded far away. "Especially that egg custard tart."

Toph laughed. "Figures you'd fantasize about the sweets. Sweetness says you go crazy every time you see an egg custard tart."

"Are you kidding?" Aang exclaimed loudly. "The Earth Kingdom is genius for coming up with such a delicious dessert! I could eat it all day."

"Fine," she smirked. "Let's remember to buy some when we land before you explode."

By the time the two of them had eaten through their dumplings and started dipping into the Fire Flakes, they couldn't be more grateful for the snack. Despite the fact that it heated up their palates to the point where they had to stick their tongues out into the cold air just to cool them down, it warmed up their entire bodies and allowed for them to ignore the particularly chilly weather. She figured it was exactly like that oddly warm day that always popped up in the middle of the winter, so thought nothing of it.

The ride to the Earth Kingdom, which Toph had expected to be rather dull and uneventful, turned out to be surprisingly entertaining. Aang was sitting directly across from Toph and had his arms folded behind his head. Toph was on her stomach, fiddling with her space bracelet and turning into as many shapes, figures, and formations she could think of. One thing she was thankful of was that the two of them never had a moment where they were bored with each other. Whenever the two of them decided to remain silent, it was always a comfort and never awkward. More often than not, they were always speaking, let it be about complete and utter nonsense, or something that might actually be important. Time with Aang always had a habit of escaping from her to the point where she never knew if it had been two minutes or two hours with him.

Bottom line, she was never bored with him. Especially when their talks happened to travel to the strange end of the spectrum.

"I'm just saying that there's no way Sparky keeps his hair that silky without a hairdresser," Toph argued.

"There's no way that Zuko would subject himself to sitting in front of a vanity while people were messing with his hair," Aang retorted, popping another handful of Fire Flakes in his mouth.

"Think about it," Toph said carefully, leaning over and tapping the side of Aang's head. "His hair is never unruly, it's always smooth and silky—trust me, I've pulled out his topknot enough to know—and yet Katara swears there is not even a single comb or hair product in his room. Not one! Either he's a magician or he has people who fix his hair for him."

"Maybe his hair is just like that naturally," Aang shrugged. "I mean, I've heard of people that roll out of bed without doing their hair, and it turns out perfect every single time."

Toph wasn't buying it. "Whoever said that is a liar. There's no way your hair looks good right after you roll out of bed. It's impossible. People always do something to their hair. And because Sparky doesn't know the first thing about hair care, he pays people to do it for him."

"Maybe he's too afraid to reveal to the world that he knows how to style hair," Aang thought. "Maybe he keeps all of his brushes, hair products, and combs hidden and only takes them out to use on his hair when no one is looking."

Toph nodded slowly, carefully thinking over Aang's theory. "It would make sense. Sparky, the Closet Hair Stylist. He's way too proud to admit, you're right about that. But that would mean he needs an actual hiding spot for them. Where would he hide them?"

Aang shrugged. "I dunno. Under his bed?"

"Doubt it. The maids probably clean under there every day. What about his wardrobe?"

"Nope. The maids put his clothes away after they wash them, so they would definitely see any hair stuff he was trying to hide. Maybe he keeps them in his study."

"Yeah, that could be a possibility. But _where_ in his study?"

They spent the majority of the time over to the Earth Kingdom discussing any and all hiding places for the Fire Lord's secret stash of hair care accessories. They even went so far as to suggest that Katara was in fact the mastermind behind Zuko's success. But Aang said that it probably wasn't possible. Even before Zuko was friends with them, his ponytail was always in mint condition. It even sparkled when the light hit it correctly—even though Toph had a hard time believing that. Toph suggested that the maids were being paid off to not whisper a word about anything. Sparky and his honor were far too important so he probably needed a cover. They had both ended the conversation by agreeing to interrogate the maids about the issue once they returned to the Fire Nation.

Aang had then pointed out along the way to a small island which was home to the world's most prestigious and notable mental health facility. It also happened to be the place where former Princess Azula was rumored to be spending her days.. Aang had said that she was being monitored around the clock and that she was never left alone. Toph of course found this to be extremely funny and then started going into Azula's probable day-to-day routine. They each exchanged the possibilities, which ranged from medicines that made her say "please" and "thank you," right down to self help circles where Azula would have stand up, introduce herself, and say that she had sadistic and homicidal tendencies. This had gone on for hours seeing as how the conversation often switched over to bashing Azula rather than discussing her schedule.

By the time Toph's cheeks were starting to get sore from smiling and laughing so much, she Aang heard gasp sharply and crawl over to the edge of the saddle. Toph let the blanket around her shoulders slide off as she poked her head over the edge as well and tried to face herself in the direction Aang was looking. She grabbed his robes and yanked on them hard.

"Hey, what are you looking at?"

Aang had jumped up from his seat and clambered over to Appa's head, steering him sharply to the left and causing Toph to jerk to the side.

"What happened?" she asked.

"We're here!"

Toph heard Aang call to Appa and felt the bison speed up considerably. She felt the sun bright and hot on the top of her head, making up for the rather chilly morning weather and started to hear shouting not far below her. With one final grunt, Appa had landed gently on the ground below them and promptly sat down on the ground, tired after the long flight. As soon as the bison had stopped moving, she heard Aang hop down from the top of the bison. She climbed over the edge of the saddle and stomped on the ground the minute her feet touched the ground.

The first strange thing she noticed was the strange structure that surrounded the small village. In the distance she could feel that there was a large mountain not too far away. It was strangely hollowed out and no vibrations traveled through it, which led Toph to believe that it was actually a volcano. There was a mountain pass that continued around the volcano and down towards the village. Just when she thought that the pass would lead through the gates of the village, large walls of rock started jutting up into the sky. They were pointed and jagged, and they reached high into the sky, shielding the entire town from the volcano. It seemed like such a strange fortress that it was impossible to believe that it was made by natural causes. But then she remembered one of the stories that Aang had told her about their travels before she joined the group.

She walked over and tugged on his robes again. "Are we…?" she began.

Aang nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah. Makapu Village."

She nodded. "So that must be Mt. Makapu, huh?" Toph said, jutting her chin over to the volcano up the mountain sides.

"Yeah. Not very smart of them to build a village at the base of a volcano, but who are we to judge?" he replied.

Toph twisted her foot against the ground and felt a vast array of vibrations pounding against the ground. They felt like a few hundred footsteps running in their direction. The houses that belonged to the village were suddenly feeling very empty and very abandoned as more people started to make their way over to the two Earth Benders.

"Um…Aang? I think we have company?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

Toph sighed. "I mean, your fan club is coming."

No sooner than the words had left Toph's mouth did a large group of women broke into view and started running full throttle over to the monk. In a matter of seconds, Toph and Aang both found themselves in a thick crowd mostly made up of women who were fighting each other to get a glimpse of the Avatar. The two backed up until their backs were pressed up against Appa's fur as the people started closing in and getting closer to the pair who had arrived. Toph could only hear screams, shouts, squeals, and even a few people fainting around them. Among the unintelligible babble, she was able to catch portions of what people were shouting.

"Oh my gosh! It's the Avatar!"

"I haven't seen him since he was a kid! Look how handsome he got!"

"Forget handsome. He's absolutely delectable!"

"He saved our whole village from that volcano, can you believe it?"

"Hehe. Well, he can come and save me any time he wants to."

Toph glared at the large crowd of women that were spewing compliments all over the place. Normally, she wasn't one to get jealous, but something about the way these women were probably ogling him at the moment made her blood boil. It was ridiculous that they couldn't stay conscious while they were around him and that their tongues were probably hanging out of their mouths. It made her sick. They had no right to be swooning over him like a bunch of idiots.

…Not that she was jealous. Of course not. That was just as ridiculous. Never. No. Not even close. She was just concerned for the well being of her best friend and feared that these crazed women would try and kidnap him or something.

Or, at leas,t that was the excuse she gave herself to excuse her hostile attitude towards all of the girls surrounding them.

What she didn't expect were the whistles and the hooting that she had started to hear as well. Soon, there were men mixed into the bunch and she was hearing cat calls and clapping from the men as well as screaming and squealing from the women. She wasn't sure if there was even an opening in the crowd for them to escape. The thought of Earth Bending herself into the ground and escaping into some terribly deserted part of the village crossed her mind. But then there was the issue of the possible mob that would be chasing her if she tried to run away. Besides, this _was_ an Earth Kingdom village. Who's to say that there wasn't an Earth Bender here that wouldn't be able to follow her into the ground and chase after her under there? Something about that scenario sounded ten times worse.

"Check it out! It's the Blind Bandit!"

"Isn't she that Bei Fong girl too? She traveled with the Avatar. She taught him Earth Bending too."

"I wonder if she teaches Earth Bending. I hear she's totally epic!"

"Man, she is _not_ ugly!"

"You think she'd let me introduce her to my parents?"

Toph growled at the comments. Next to her, she felt Aang tense up his muscles and turn his head towards the comments that were being thrown her way. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought that he was extremely bothered by the comments. Almost as if he was getting defenseless and—dare she say it—_jealous!_

But of course she did know better. So that was completely ludicrous, not to mention impossible…

…right?

"Let me through! Let me through! Everyone clear the way!"

Slowly, the confusing barrage of noise had ceased as the crowd in front of them started to part slowly. Coming down the newly formed isle was someone that Toph noticed had a heck of a lot of jewelry on. She could hear the jingling coming from the person walking forward after every step she took. Not even the Fire Lady wore that much jewelry,and Katara was quite fond of covering her arms in expensive bracelets. But somehow, the people seemed to respect this person, for most of them muttered quiet apologizes towards this person and a few even bent at the waist slightly as they made a path for them.

"Ah, the Avatar. I knew that I would be seeing you again soon. You've grown into quite the young man, I see."

The voice sounded like that of an old woman, and Toph thought that she talked a little bit like Uncle Iroh. Iroh had this type of voice that spoke years of wisdom and insight, which is why she always came to him for some good advice. Plus, his freshly brewed tea was also worth the visit. This woman sounded very similar to him, so she assumed that she was probably the elder of the village,and was probably wise and influential enough to quiet down the crowd around them.

Aang had bowed slightly. "It's nice to see you again, Aunt Wu. I'd like you to meet my very good friend and my Earth Bending teacher, Toph Bei Fong."

Aang nudged her forward a little bit and placed her directly in front of the woman. She had to try not wrinkle her nose when she got a whiff of the perfume that this Aunt Wu person was wearing. It was very overwhelming, and it smelled as if she poured the entire body all over her skin, hair, and clothes. Still, she remembered Aang telling her about Aunt Wu. She was the village Fortune Teller and was held in high respect in the village seeing as how her visions were never wrong. Aang said that her psychic abilities were probably a little less than reliable, but she was still very intelligent, and gave him a strong piece of advice when he was young.

Toph bowed quickly and held out her hand. "Nice to meet you."

Instead of grabbing her hand to shake it, Aunt Wu ignored the Earth Bender's hand and grabbed at her chin. Toph was about to say something before Aunt Wu began to twist her face to the left, then to the right, and then to the left again. She tilted Toph's head up and started to mutter unintelligible comments under her breath. Her scrutinizing gaze was set on Toph's face and Top felt slightly nervous at having someone look so intently at her. After all, she was blind. It's not like Aunt Wu was going to see anything insightful. So what in the world was she looking for?

"Hm," Aunt Wu nodded, letting go of Toph's chin and folding her hands delicately in front of her. "Well, you certainly are quite the character. Sharp tongued and hard headed, no doubt." Toph scowled at this. "But very determined and extremely loyal to those she loves." She turned to Aang. "Quite a friend you have with you. She's leagues different from the Water Bender you brought here last time." Aunt Wu then leaned toward him and winked. "Don't let her go, okay?"

Toph missed the wink, so she didn't understand why Aang was rubbing the back of his neck again as if he was terribly nervous. The old woman chuckled and whispered something about young people before straightening her spine, and speaking loud enough so that the rest of the crowd (which was probably the entirety of the village) could hear her clearly.

"So, what brings you to our quaint little village again, Mr. Avatar."

"We were wondering if we could possibly stay here until tomorrow, if it wouldn't be too much trouble," Aang explained. "We are heading over to Ba Sing Se as the Earth King's escorts."

Aunt Wu smiled and nodded. "Ah, well there is no reason at all that we can't make room for War Veterans such as yourselves. And besides, after what you did for us when Mt. Makapu erupted, it would be rude of us to refuse." Aunt Wu had snapped her fingers and gestured towards a few young men that came at her side at once. They owed slightly again before listening to her specific instructions.

"Please take the Avatar's bison into our stables. Make sure that he is comfortable and that he has enough to eat." The two men nodded before going over Aang who had handed them the Appa's reins and gave them specific instructions on how to make sure that Appa was as comfortable as possible. As soon as the large flying bison was led away, Aunt Wu had gestured them forward and asked them to follow her into town. The crowd slowly started to dissipate as they started going back towards their houses in small groups.

"Can you walk okay?" Aang muttered.

Toph nodded. "I told you. I'm just limping a little bit. I'll be fine."

"Here." He grabbed Toph's arms and wrapped it over his shoulder. He then grabbed her around the waist and started to help her walk forward and keep up with the Fortune Teller that was disappearing into the village. Toph's eyes widened and looked toward Aang, trying to control the blood flow that was creeping North.

"L-look. I can walk fine, you don't have to help," Toph pleaded quickly.

"Listen," he said softly. "Forget about me teasing you and poking fun at the situation. You're my very good friend, you're injured, and it'd be rude of me to have you walking on your own when you can barely do it properly."

"But I don't—"

"Just humor me," Aang cut her off. "Maybe you don't need help, but I want to help you. Call it kindness, gallantry, or whatever you want. But you are not walking without any help." His quick and insistent response left Toph to do nothing but simply nod and allow him to lead her away into the town.

She wasn't sure why, but there had to be some sort of higher being in the sky that was writing out these embarrassing situations like they were scenes in a hit play. No matter how hard Toph tried to not reveal any hidden emotions around Aang that would hinder their friendship, something always had to come up that would threaten her deepest secret. Granted, Aang was terribly oblivious in an innocent sort of way, so he probably wouldn't have noticed regardless. But still, it wasn't fair. She was trying so hard to let her best friend heal in peace after the wedding of the only girl he was ever really in love with and fate just kept pushing her, almost as if it was yelling, "Just hurry up and kiss the monk already!"

But, as the Fortune Teller said, she was stubborn—or maybe she said hardheaded. How was she even able to figure out all of those things about her anyway? How could you see determination, hard-headedness, the tendency to talk as if you were tongue was made of knives, and timeless loyalty, just by twisting a person's face around? Whatever. Toph never understood Fortune Tellers. She always found them to be cryptic and, more importantly, phony. It was better to just ignore people like that.

As she was hanging onto Aang and being led into the middle of the village, even more whispers were being thrown around the town as they walked on. Because of her rather acute senses, she was able to hear a lot more than she would have wanted to.

"Look! Look at how he's holding her!"

"Aw! That's so sweet. They're the cutest thing I've ever seen."

"Dang. That means the Avatar is taken."

"Forget the Avatar. That means that the hot Earth Bender is taken."

"He came here with a pretty Water Bender last time he was here. I thought for sure that was his girlfriend."

"Are you kidding? Look at them. They're made for each other. Such tenderness. I think I might faint."

"I'm so happy for him. That Earth Kingdom girl is really pretty and they seem to like each other."

"I agree. I see chemistry so strong it's bubbling over!"

Toph rolled her eyes. One thing she hated more than anything else was gossipers. Her parents and their friends were already adept gossipers. Actually, they were so good the entirety of Gaoling's secrets were already discovered and spread around the entire city by her parents alone. To be honest, she found it to be terribly annoying, and it was even more annoying now that she was the brunt of all of the gossip throughout the town.

It was as if the entire _world_ was dropping hints.

Aang turned to her and brought his mouth to her ear. More whispers of "What is he telling her?" and "Why is he being so nice to that chick!" were floating around. Either Aang didn't hear them or he chose to ignore them, because he didn't waste a second to whisper to her so that no one else could hear.

"Sorry. I didn't think this village was filled with this many gossipers." He sounded a little guilty and even a little embarrassed.

But Toph nodded her head as she limped onward. "It's okay. It's just a bunch of people with nothing else better to do with their time. It doesn't bother me." _Yeah right. They're all insinuating that we're a couple_, she snickered.

Aang grumbled to himself. "Tell me about it. To think that people could be so in tune with our lives just because we stopped a war. I feel like we're always the topic of discussion even if we're not around."

"You better watch out though," Toph warned quietly. "Some of these guys don't like that you're so close. I can hear everything they're saying."

Aang shrugged. "So? You should see some of the death glares you're getting from all of these girls. They can't do anything."

"But still," Toph complained, letting her uneasiness about all of the rumors surrounding them show. "It's…weird. Why are people taking you helping me so seriously?"

Aang hugged her closer and started turning his head towards all of the stares that people were giving. Most started whispering louder, some glared, and others turned away, embarrassed by the fact that they had been caught staring.

"I don't know. Maybe they're all jealous," he laughed so that only the two of them could hear him. "We are pretty popular. Besides, you're really pretty. All these guys are probably mad they're not the ones leading you into the village."

Toph nodded. That made sense, she supposed. After all, guys would jump on any opportunity to impress a girl, especially if that girl happened to be famous. But she still found the whispers and the pointing annoying and distracting to say the least. She wished people would just mind their business and leave them be. They were just two best friends, and one of them happened to be helping the other one who happened to be injured. There was nothing strange about it. And what did she care what these people thought? They were all strangers and it would do her no good to pay attention to them. What did they know, anyway? Stressing over this was just…

…wait a minute. Did Aang just call her _pretty?_

* * *

**A/N: **_I decided to stop it here, because the chapter was getting too long. But, I thought this was the perfect way to end the chapter. I hope you liked it. I enjoyed writing it. _

**_REVIEW PROMPT_: What do YOU think is the deal with Zuko's hair?**

_If you have something creative, interesting, shocking, endearing, fantastic, ingenious, critical, or outrageous to say, please review. And if you don't…well…review anyway! Thank you. _


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